Hindley, 44, a former SUFC community coach, has painted a giant portrait of Grenville Squires, the man who for the last 28 years has been the caretaker at Britain's largest Grade II listed building.

"I wanted to paint pictures of folk from Park Hill and had six or seven people in mind but Grenville stuck," he explained.

"He's part of the fabric of the building and the community and this place has been his everyday life for over a quarter of a century. So from the point of view of an artist, he is a fantastic subject."

Grenville is very happy that his face will be the first of the 7ft by 8ft portraits to decorate the buildings he worked on for so long.

Click here to visit Gary Hindley's official website

"I was quite flattered when Gary approached me about the portrait, obviously where it will be put up is a big part of my life. I'm very impressed with the painting, you can see it's me!"

Grenville, 64, and now living on the Manor, will be retiring in five months and he is looking forward to seeing the redevelopment of his beloved Park Hill.

He said: "Park Hill to me is like an old lady who they loved once but she fell out of favour. All she needs is her faced washed and make-up on and she'll be back out again.

"From what pictures I have seen of the flats and also what the developers have done with other places, they have made them look beautiful.

"It's great what they are doing with it and so much better than just knocking it down. People talk about recycling everything nowadays. So why not recycle buildings?"

Gary Hindley saw the potential of the site as a "massive gallery" and approached developers Urban Splash early this year, impressing them with his unique idea.

He has self-funded the project and is looking to produce between five and eight portraits of people who lived at the flats.

Gary said: "The next pictures will be of people who have lived at Park Hill in its heyday in the Fifties and Sixties who I viewed on documentaries to tie in with the history of the flats.

"However, I don't know their names so I'm hoping somebody might recognise them. Also, what I have seen is on black and white footage, as an artist I want to add colour to it too."

This is Gary's biggest project since he caught the art bug aged 10, when he entered a competition in the Sheffield Star to design a monster, which he won.

But while that gave him the inspiration to take up art at school, he did not agree with what he was being taught, leading to him leaving aged 15.

Gary said: "I felt stifled at school because my instincts are to be creative. I was being given projects to last a month and was doing them in a day, so I got bored and began helping my mates out on theirs."

He added: "It was like getting a right-handed person to use their left hand. I went to apply for college but got knocked back from there because I was a punk at the time and my work was off the cuff and edgy.