A BANKSY artwork painted on a wall outside a cash-strapped youth club has saved it from closure after the elusive artist gave the piece to the owners.

Mobile Lovers, showing a couple embracing while checking their mobile phones, appeared on a doorway next to Broad Plain Working With Young People in Bristol in April.

The piece, attached to a piece of wood and screwed to the wall on Clement Street, was removed by members of the youth club with a crowbar.

Club owner Dennis Stinchcombe moved Mobile Lovers to a corridor and invited members of the public to come and view it, with donations optional.

Within days, police removed the stencil and handed it to the city council, which put it on display at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery while its ownership was established.

But Banksy later took the unusual step of writing a letter to Mr Stinchcombe, stating that “as far as I’m concerned, you can have it.”

Broad Plain Working With Young People has sold the piece to a private collector in Britain for £403,000 — securing the future of the 120-year-old club.