South Ayrshire Council is running an innovative trial project in Ayr town centre to address the problem of unauthorised free-standing advertising boards being placed on pavements.

Walking along a pavement is something that most people do every day and never have any problems. However, often unintentionally, some people have obstacles outside their businesses that cause other people inconvenience and sometimes serious injury.

For people who are blind, partially sighted, wheelchair users, or have a young child in a pram the obstacles mean that they may have to move on to the roadway to get past them which can be dangerous.

Convener of the Economic and Tourism Development Committee, Councillor Robert Campbell said: "The Council has received a significant number of complaints about free-standing advertising boards which businesses have placed on public footways without permission. These boards can create public safety issues for all pedestrians, and particularly for anyone with a visual impairment, or physical disability.

"The Council works closely with members of the South Ayrshire Access Panel and the South Ayrshire Accident Prevention Committee on a number of matters, and the problems these boards cause have also been raised by them.

"Before deciding to run this trial project other local authorities in Scotland were contacted to see how they address this problem. Many do not have any specialised procedures, so a number of Councils are keen to see the outcome of this trial project.

"I hope that those who place out unauthorised free-standing boards will realise that the Council is taking this matter very seriously in order to protect the safety of pedestrians.

"A further report will be presented to the Committee at the end of the trial period to update Members on the affect the new system has had on Ayr town centre.

There are already powers available to the Council under planning and roads legislation to have boards removed, but the existing procedures are cumbersome, time consuming and very costly.

Following consultation with various sections of the Council Officers from the Council's Legal Services Section have suggested a procedure by which the advertising boards could be removed.

The new procedure for the removal of obstructive free-standing advertising boards in Ayr town centre during the pilot project is as follows:

• An advert will be placed in the local press advising that the boards currently placed on the pavement do not have the consent of the roads authority and are causing an obstruction
• The advert will advise local businesses that they have seven days to remove the boards
• A notice will be delivered by hand to each offending business on the expiry of the seven day period if the board has not been removed. The notice will advise the individual business that they have five days within which to remove the board after which time it will be removed by the Council
• The second notice will be served after the expiry of the five day period and will be served by hand delivery when a board is being removed. The Council will store the board for seven days and then dispose of it
• The Council is entitled to recover reasonable expenses and therefore intends to issue invoices to offenders to recover expenses incurred.

To carry out this procedure once will cost approximately £1,000, so the Council propose to recover any expense incurred from the owner of the boards.

October 2005