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March 21, 2007
A-mazing twist
There has been an amazing twist to the council's decision to start charging traders across the borough to place boards advertising their businesses outside their shops.
I have mentioned this new legislation in previous blogs and made my own views well known. We have also covered the story in depth in the pages of the Gazette, especially the horror and outrage from traders to charge them nearly £400 to place the boards outside their shops.
The council originally claimed that their decision to start charging came after they had received complaints from residents about the safety of pavements for blind and partially sighted people, the elderly and parents with pushchairs.
I have to say this all sounded rather suspicious at the time and it was difficult to understand how making traders cough up the cash to display the boards was going to make our pavements any safer.
However, it has now come to light this week that the council only ever received ONE formal complaint about the advertising boards being a safety hazard.
It appears on this basis they have gone ahead to start charging traders nearly £400 to obtain a licence to have A-boards outside their premises.
Quite rightly traders across the borough are up in arms following this latest revelation and it makes me believe that it is no more than a gravy train for the council rather than a genuine piece of common sense legislation.
We have covered the story in this week's Gazette, which is out today, and are awaiting a formal response from the council to the latest twist to this story.
I will be extremely interested to hear what they have got to say ...
Posted by aseal at March 21, 2007 8:17 AM
Comments...
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
Comment posted by: Idetrorce at December 15, 2007 11:12 PM