Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
MOTORISTS driving on the busy A38 into Birmingham this week were treated to the sight of the large, illuminated head of Damian Vernon projected on to the side of the West Midlands police headquarters along with the words, `Wanted in connection with robbery'. It is nice to know that the constabulary is attending to its duties — and also inter- esting to note that the police are able to get away with an act which would itself land any other freeborn Englishman on a 'wanted' poster. Carrying a large advertisement, even on the side of your own building, is forbidden without plan- ning consent. Traders who have applied for permission for such a sign have often found it refused on the grounds that the police have ruled it would be a distraction to motorists.
There are many bossy laws concern- ing where you can and cannot display an advert, few of which make sense. For example, you are allowed to hoist a flag advertising your business, but only if the flagpole is vertical. You are allowed to put up a poster on the side of your shop, but only if there is a window on the same wall. You are within your rights to erect a poster advertising, say, Oxo, but only if you sell Oxo inside your shop. You can hang an illuminated advert inside your shop window, but only if the advert is hanging within a metre of the glass. If you are a property developer, you can hang a sign from a lamp-post pointing the way to your lat- est housing estate; if you are a landlord wanting to point the way to your coun- try inn, on the other hand, you had bet- ter leave those lamp-posts alone. Anyone wanting to complain about the police's advert in Birmingham, don't bother writing in: why not advertise your complaint on a large balloon tethered at fewer than 60 metres above the city by some quirk, no government has ever got round to banning balloon adverts.
Ross Clark
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