A famous Banksy piece once valued at a million pounds has been destroyed – by a builder.

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The iconic ‘spy booth’ piece was painted on the side of a house in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (about 3 miles from the HQ of Britain’s surveillance agency, GCHQ) and depicted three ‘spooks’ spying on a phone box with listening devices:

Well, as of Saturday, it looks like this:

Sources say a labourer arrived at the home and was told to remove the rendering on the side of the house above the Banksy.

As he worked on removing the exterior wall coating, the famous art work below it collapsed.

A colleague, who wants to remain anonymous, says:

The render had to come down to a certain point so the plasterers could start in Monday.

The render had all blown away and had damp behind it. It’s been left for two and a half years.

It’s become derelict. The owner couldn’t fix it up to have tenants in because the council said it was listed.

The labourer was told to go down to a point where it was safe above the Banksy.

He was told to take the render down, about 3ft away from the Banksy. He was asked to chip it down to a point where it was safe.

I got a text at 12am Sunday morning saying what had happened.

The Banksy fell off in pieces. The owner has taken most of it to the council because they had asked for it.

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MP Alex Chalk describes the loss of the work as “absolutely shocking” and has launched an enquiry:

The Banksy mural is a much admired piece of Cheltenham’s artistic heritage. We need an urgent inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened. Whoever is responsible needs to be held to account.

We need answers. Has it definitely been destroyed? If so, who by? How did the conservation effort go so badly wrong? Time for urgent clarification.

Tackling the real serious issues eh?

The piece originally appeared in 2013 following Edward Snowden’s revelations of widespread phone tapping by western governments.