Headington Hill Anti-Flyposter Campaign

Contender for first official complaint...

2006-04-05T22:37:00.000Z

...Since the article appeared in the paper the other day, more and more use seems to have been made of the official poster boards. But one or two still insist on putting stuff on the bus stop opposite outside Headington Hill.

Trouble is, now that they are using paste to put posters up on the boards, they've decided to use the same to put stuff up on the bus stop. So now instead of being easily removed the morning after, they are stuck fast and leave a mess when you try to take them off.

Incidentally, did anyone in Magdalen Rd get consulted on there being a 5am license for 1000 students at the Bingo Hall on Saturday 30th April for this May Day Ball? Apparently only the police have the right to object to Temporary Events Notices as opposed to regular licenses.

Anyway - for using paste on the bus stop, Escape and the May Ball crowd might very well find themselves the first venues/organisers complained about to the licensing panel:

No exceptions...

2006-04-05T22:33:00.000Z

...just because I am an employee of the university doesn't mean I should tolerate littering by the Students' Union or events associated with it or its societies. In fact I specifically asked them before I started my campaign to be good and not participate in this kind of advertising as I would not treat them any differently. And I asked them to inform their societies and so on to respect the law and not litter and flypost. But here we are. At least they're easier to collect and bin than the ones scattered on the floor, but lamp post stickers are still clutter and litter and visually intrusive:

Widening the whingeing...

2006-04-05T21:42:00.000Z

I notice someone has ripped out the brand spanking new timetable boxes from the local bus stop "King's Mill Lane" stop on Marston Rd:

Art for litter's sake...

2006-04-03T22:30:00.000Z

A nice twist to the campaign - some folk are doing some kind of community art project on Brookes's Headington Hill Hall site and they seem to think that flyers attached to cars, that of course become litter the second the owner returns, is great art.

Roll on Turner!

Sexy birds...

2006-04-03T22:24:00.000Z

Very odd one today. I can only assume it was an attempt at art. The phone box on London Rd was absolutely plastered with fake prostitte made up from famous works of art.

And then - sometimes cars come back to haunt you. There was this Seat that used to park blocking entrances and turning areas in the hall all last year (students in residence are not supposed to have cars in Oxford but how do we know which belong to whom). And sure enough, today he (or she) turns up in flagrant disregard of all the rules of the road parked up on the pavement by the London Road gates.

Chaps, or whoever you are, double yelllow lines and zigzags apply right to the edge of the highway, including any footpath, and parking adjacent to a pedestrian crossing can be just plain dangerous.

(The person next to the car is nothing to do with it - just a passer by.

An explosion in a bus stop...

2006-03-29T22:21:00.000Z

...there were dozens and dozens of these Fuzzy Ducks fliers plastering the windows and left on the floor of the westbound Pullens Lane stop today. Needless to say the ones on the floors were completely useless, merely litter, with nobody showing any interest in picking them up.

Solutions...

2006-03-27T13:52:00.000Z

Now, lest anyone get the impression that I'm just a Mr Angry killjoy, as I've already said I support many of these venues. I wrote in support of the Zodiac's planning application for the Tile Shop and so on, but in the Oxford Mail article they quote:

Tim Hopkins, manager of the Cellar Bar in the city centre, said: "I hate litter and think a lot of these tactics are very disrespectful to our area. But clubs do need to advertise, so I don't think the problem will ever go away completely. But I do think it could be done better."

He suggested the council sell advertising space at bus stops, put up boxes for flyers, or even establish a traffic light system of acceptable sites, such as boarded up shop fronts, and unacceptable sites, such as telephone boxes.

Tim is, of course, one of the chaps who replied nicely to my original email saying very much what he said here. And I've also been thinking about bus shelters and sponsorship. The two bus shelters close to Brookes are both crap old dirty things that aren't really up to modern standards. But there's a policy of not replacing shelters outside the town centre I believe unless it's done with advertisers' money such as those owned by MAI (part, I believe, of that nasty right wing American media group that staged pro-war rallies across the US in 2003).

So if it's good enough for MAI, why not in specific places for local firms? Could a consortium of the major venues get together and buy new bus shelters for these spots? I seem to remember that when a local parish council paid for a new shelter in Wood Farm it cost about £1700. Probably too small for these areas but the bigger ones could be useful, and then dedicated to local venue advertising, instead of Pepperami adverts or whatever on the MAI ones.

I don't know whether one could get leaflet dispensers as well for the shelters maybe?

Nice press coverage...

2006-03-27T13:27:00.000Z

I got a half page on the Oxford Mail today, thank you very much down there! They sent a photographer chappie a week or so ago and I thought they had maybe dumped the story.

This will move tomorrow when it gets shunted into the archives, but here's the piccie anyway - I hope they don't mind me using it:

Getting a bit better....

2006-03-20T13:17:00.000Z

I have to say, over the past couple of weeks things have died down a little. Still, regular as clockwork on a Tuesday night the Fuzzy Ducks lot come round - I nearly caught one of them last week I think. They must have walked straight past me and gone on to stuff their tat into the fence loops at the top of Morrell Hall.

People have started using the poster boards again, so I don't know if the message has been getting through. And it's a long time since I took any flyposters down off the bus shelter or the trees around Cheney Field. Of course it could just be that the person that Brookes Community Liaison pays to go round and remove them is beating me to it!

But down in halls the problem is as bad as ever really. Flyers are the worst. Posters, the people could put up and go round again and take down relatively easily maybe an eyesore overnight, but they're not as bad as flyers that just litter all over the place, encouraging people to treat the whole place as a general refuse tip. Cuckoo Lane was cleared over the Christmas holidays, after the flyers came the empty coke bottles and food wrappers and I'm sure they would not be as prevalent if the flyers did not give the general impression that it's okay to litter:

We're closing in...

2006-03-09T13:11:00.000Z

...if you are the preson who is distributing this stuff from halls of residence down John Garne Way, you should know we are closing in on you. We know where one load of leaflets clearly intended for distribution were delivered to someone's bedroom and if I recognise you doing it there will be at least university disciplinary procedures to go through even if your employer doesn't care...which they won't:

Oops - and another car park has emerged on the pavement again...just for note:

If you thought Valentines was bad...

2006-03-07T13:07:00.000Z

...think again. March 7th and they're already advertising for the May "Ball" (presumably in a muddy field somewhere with loads of pills and no sit down meal as any true ball should have...did you people not go to decent schools?):

Now for something completely different...

2006-03-01T13:04:00.000Z

I really want to keep this blog specific to flyers and flypostering, but I couldn't help notice the irony here. Something we complained about long ago when the building work started on Brookes's new Buckley building, so it'll not come as a surprise that I'm a bit annoyed the problem is back, especially as we are just about to try to embark on a campaign to get students to stop double and pavement parking the cars they're not supposed to have in Oxford down at John Garne Way.

PAVEMENTS ARE FOR PEOPLE. Double yellow lines and zig-zags apply right to the edge of the highway, which includes the pavements. Blocking out vision in front of pedestrian crossings and entrances is particularly dangerous:

On campus crap...

2006-02-22T12:58:00.000Z

...today I took a slightly different route home through campus just to see if it was going on on there too...unsurprisingly, it is...These from Fuzzy Ducks again:

Happy Mondays...

2006-02-20T12:49:00.000Z

...at least someone has gone mad with flyers in particular this morning.

And these nice people from Oceans & Collins - they want to maintain an upmarket image around the city apparently. This really does it for me! I'd go here for a sophisticated drinks, wouldn't you?

Innovation...

2006-02-15T12:46:00.000Z

...well, it is a centre of learning I suppose. Innovative use of fencing:

St Valentine's Day Messacre

2006-02-14T12:40:00.000Z

They're everywhere today. Hardly any surprise I suppose since some venues have been promoting this year's commercial love-fest for weeks already, but with it also being a Tuesday it means they're all getting mixed in with the weekly "Fuzzy Ducks" trash-fest...

Some of these are quite sweet really...

2006-02-10T12:36:00.000Z

...the hand made Maxwell's ones with the big love heart on tear my heart pulling them down, but in some ways they are the worst, not because of what they look like but because I always find them stapled into trees. Now, I am no rabid tree-hugger but the staples leave a terrible mess of tatty scraps of paper on trees and, well, it's just not what they are there for.

It all makes work...

2006-02-09T12:29:00.000Z

...and the cleaning machine only came round Headington Hill yesterday and managed to get most of these up, so true to form another load get dumped overnight:

Thirsty work

2006-02-08T12:23:00.000Z

Thirst bar and Escape's tatty posters seem to be amongst the worst still:

Monday morning rich (litter) pickings...

2006-02-06T12:05:00.000Z

I presume these Thirst flyers are the things "distributed" by the people who wrote me that email the other day saying they had no alternative (what little imagination they have). Between them and "Luvinit" at Park End, they make up most of my Monday morning walk to work. Folks, if you think this is "advertising" you're paying for idiots, and anti-social ones at that.

On the other hand...

2006-02-02T14:23:00.000Z

Someone imaginatively named: anon-emouse@hotmail.co.uk (click to email him/her/them/it to tell them you agree or disagree with them) wrote...

Dear Jock,

Thank you for your touching concern for our environment, however the city council provides bins next to bus stops for unwanted flyers or posters to go in.
Its nice that you show such concern for only one part of Oxford, would that be the part you live in ?
Having reviewed your website and your self glorifying profile we are all confused as to whether this site is for the good of Oxford or your own self promotion.

We all recognise the need to promote to the student community however your own employers have forced venues to be underhand since they request blackmail payments to be in competition with their own venue leading to promotion on the outer reaches of Brookes , i would suggest you speak to your employers to seek a better alternative rather than issuing threats against accepted well run and professional establishments.

On the subject of employment it would appear that we both need students in order to pay the rent.

Thank you for your concerns and threats however we do feel that we care for the environment that many of us live and work in and like you take great care and protection of the student community.

Promoters and Venues have already been backed into a corner by stopping of flyering in the city centre the fact is that this has only served to move the problem to the headington area.

Anonymous

What-evva! You can blame everyone you like, chap, but the fact is that what many of you and your colleagues are doing is illegal. Some of it for very good reasons - posters on lamp-posts for example are a distraction to drivers. Dropping your fliers all over the place instead of handing them to people is just a cop out - you takes your fiver a thousand or whatever it is and minimise the effort involved by chucking them everywhere.

Plainly littering the place up every week is not taking care of the environment by any stretch of the imagination. It's littering. And it's really got very little to do with "care and protection of the student community" as much as "exploitation" of the student community and bugger the rest of the community that's affected by it.

How come all these venues are rammed on non-student nights without you having to litter the surrounding towns and villages that people come in from? How do you "promote" to them? You have a much tighter knit community amongst the students in East Oxford to which to promote your events. You could access a very high proportion of them by leafletting doors in a few streets and a few halls of residence. But littering is less effort I suppose.

And, of course I am most concerned about the area I live in - because that's the local environment. What a stupid question. However we do know from surveys of residents all over the place that wherever this occurs it is perceived as a problem, which is why for several years on the trot now the City Council's highest priority "policy" has been "a Cleaner Safer Oxford".

The only people who are likely to lose out on this are you operations that sub-contract to do this littering. No venue is going to lose their license over a few leaflets - but they will have to switch to using more responsible promoters in order to keep their licenses. And most of these venue operators are only too willing to work with the City Council on things like this.

But, since you don't know me from Adam, just to show you that I do care about the rest of your issues, I actually wrote in support of the Zodiac's recent application to convert the Tile Shop. I was jointly-responsible on the committee that got the metal poster boards installed around student areas. One of my projects for affordable housing focusses on student housing - if they were paying less for housing they'd be able to spend more in those venues no doubt.

So grow up, and do the decent thing. You've seen the photos of what some of you are doing. It's illegal, anti-social and bring disrepute on the venues you are working for, as well as the university and the students as a group, because residents resent the imposition on their local street scene of your rubbish. And I don't actually believe, from what I know of the venue owners and licencees when I've seen them at council and so on, that you are accurately reflecting their own feelings about the image they want to project in the city.

Cellar and RevampVIP do the decent thing...

2006-02-02T10:02:00.000Z

I wrote yesterday to any venues and promoters I could gather email addresses for, explaining what I was doing, and how the activities of whoever is responsible for handling their promotional material was blighting the neighbourhood, and got two nice replies from one venue, The Cellar in Frewin Passage off Cornmarket Street and a promoter called "RevampVIP" who are handling promotion for something called "The Thai Full Moon Party".

So I thought I would mention them here as organisations who seem to be willing to "do the right thing" and not impose on other people and residents:

From the Cellar, which I gather offers good comedy on a Monday nights:

06th MONDAY
The Free Beer Show [presents]
Comedy Club
Gordon Southern (Radio 4s The Cheese Shop) Alistair Barrie (Brilliantly funny The Guardian)
8pm-1am
£6/£5 members free beer with every ticket

Hi Jock

I am with you on this. I hate litter and think a lot of these tactics are
very disrespectful to our area. Expesaly the stapling to trees. I don't like
the bus stops being targeted ether.

I will pass this info on to the promoters and make sure they no the rules.

But on the flip side the council have put up these poster boards that don't
hold enough poster for the amount of nights out there. The boards are badly
designed. In fact the backs of the boards are better because they are flat
rather than having a big metal ridge round it.

Clubs do need to advertise so I don't thing the problem will ever go away
completely. But I do think it could be done better.

There surly could be a simple way of fixing some of these problems like
having a flyer box were flyers could go. Selling advertising space on the
bus stop so it is done neatly. Putting up sighs on the walk ways saying
flyposters will be prosecuted. That sort of thing.

If you would like to contact me further to discus this issue, please do so.

Thanks.

Tim.

...and from Ryan at RevampUK, organising the promotion for the Thai Full Moon Party at Oceans & Collins on Mondays starting 6th February:

Hi Jock,

I am extremely sorry to hear that the promotion we have organised is causing bad littering in the halls and on campus. We have strict instructions to all our staff to make sure that any flyers left on the ground get picked up. I will ensure that our flyers are picked up by tomorrow afternoon and will emphasise the importance of making sure that there is no littering of flyers in the future. I am very sorry to have caused any nuisance to yourself or anyone else in the conservation area of Headington.

Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to help.

Kind regards,

Ryan

So, some people do seem to care, and rightly too. I'm involved in promotions for another music event in Oxford, the Catweazle Club (just in case you all thought I must be some boring grumpy old fart) and I know many groups who are acutely community aware.

Missed a couple...

2006-02-02T09:28:00.000Z

Same people, on the bus shelter, "Wednesday night at the Bridge" blah, blah...

Wednesday's lunchtime walk

2006-02-01T13:46:00.000Z

...uncovered about 15 of these Fuzzy Ducks posters attached variously to lamp posts and park fences together with literally hundreds of their fliers just lying around the place. If this is not simply litter I don't know how one would describe it.

On the other had, on yesterday's lunchtime walk there were two people actually handing people individual fliers at the entrance to Cheney field, so with not too much imagination it is possible to get fliers out there in a way that does not just mess up our neighbourhood. It is truly anti-social behaviour. I'm going to see if we can get any of the CCTV camera footage from Cheney field's Brookes cameras to see if we can identify the individual doing this. I suspect the university will have something to say if it is a student.

Fuzzy Duck's couldn't give a...

2006-02-01T09:13:00.000Z

Prize for most egregiously thoughtless and intrusive advertising goes to Fuzzy Ducks hosted on Wednesday nights at the Zodiac club. Now - I like the Zodiac. They have good bands there frequently, local acts too, and some fantastic musical nights. So wouldn't it be a real shame if because of the advertising of people they hire their venue out to they were to lose their license. But this morning they made my blood boil.

You can't see it terribly well but this photo shows that someone's shinned right up a lamp-post in Pullens Lane - part of the conservation area incidentally so doubly bad - to staple one of those double posters that goes soggy and limp and makes the place look tatty for as long as they're there.

As if that wasn't enough, there are literally hundreds of fliers littering the Cuckoo Lane path and the pavements in the area as shown in this other appropriately "fuzzy" picture, together with a whole bunch lying around for something called "Huey and DJ Mateo".

If I catch a resident of Morrell Hall doing any of this when I'm on duty, I shall be ensuring that they spend as much of the rest of the academic year doing community service as I can - clearing up after these tawdry advertisers.

The lunchtime walk

2006-01-31T13:20:00.000Z

...after a few weeks of quiet, the lunchtime walk has started to show up a few interesting flyposters. Just so those of you think to outwit me know, I generally go around Cheney field, over the bridge over the London Road, round Headington Hill Park and back up Cheney Lane to the office. So if you think you can get away with putting things on the bridge piers (pictured - today's offering from "education" on Mondays at the Zodiac - multiple offenders the Zodiac clearly) just because it's a hundred yards away from the bus shelter or Cuckoo Lane, I'm one step ahead of you.

Also, one of the tattiest areas in the whole neighbourhood are the trees as you enter Cheney field from Cheney Lane - pictured today a poster for something called "Flight & Alley Cat" on 02/02/06 at the "Baby Love Bar".

Valentines vermin

2006-01-31T11:22:00.000Z

Biggest blot on the blog this morning was the following poster for a Valentines Day event at Park End Club. This is two full weeks away, so did you expect your tatty poster to be dangling from a bus stop getting wet and limp for the next two weeks? Think again. Removed this morning, along with several of your fliers littering around Morrell Hall again.

The Journey Home

2006-01-30T17:45:00.000Z

...to Morrell Hall confirmed that the nuisance of fliers and flyposters has not abated with Christmas. I removed some forty or so "AAA" fliers dangling from tree branches and fence posts, picked up as many as I could be bothered to do of "Fuzzy Ducks" fliers simply left, it appeared, all over the place - by the way I stepped on one by accident and nearly went flying - believe me if I were injured in such an accident I would make sure to try to claim compensation - and a whole load of little fliers for something at "Oceans & Collins" which I understand is what used to be called the Chicago Rock Cafe - pity it sounds like a gentleman's outfitters or something now and not a bar. There were two rather smart board backed posters tied to a lamp post in Pullens Lane for an event next Saturday and Monday, so one presumes the perpetrators - Zodiac and the Bullingdon pub respectively - were expecting them to last there a week getting more and more tatty.

Afternoon update...

2006-01-30T16:17:00.000Z

Passing the eastbound Pullens Lane bus stop I noticed the pictured flyposter for "Kit-Cat" at a place called "Filth" courtesy of the folks at "noblenights.com". Be noble chaps - you've plastered the official board opposite with plenty of them. There's no need to mess up the bus shelters and so on. Also found several of the "AAA" fliers from this morning stuck into the ceiling tiles in the Brookes DEM block foyer. Tacky or what?

Monday Week One - the deluge approaches?

2006-01-30T11:04:00.000Z

Several different culprits this morning, though I suspect that some of these at least were up over the weekend. First, already I found fliers dangling from trees on the Morrell Hall site and scattered around the place like litter. For something called "AAA" at "Thirst" (pictured) and for "Luvin It" at the Park End Club - a Valentines night do.

Then, on the bus shelter and fencing entering the Gipsy Lane site, there were posters for something called "Kitschen" at "Escape", and also one that did not make me feel good taking them down - for "Womens boxercise" just randomly taped to walls on site. Now I know the latter does good work all over the county, but there are plenty of official noticeboards you can use without adding to the flyposting problem.

Look! It's a poster board! And it's very nearby.

2006-01-23T09:49:00.000Z

Just so you know what I'm on about when I talk about the poster boards that the city council and universities paid for so you can advertise your events without damaging trees, walls, bus shelters, phone boxes, or littering the place with fliers (some chance!) here's a photograph of the poster board almost opposite the bus shelter at the end of Pullens Lane.

There are more of these next to the (currently closed off) London Rd entrance to Brookes' main campus, and also at the Old Road end of Gipsy Lane and along Warneford Lane near the roundabout at the top of Divinity Rd I think. No doubt there are others about too. Why don't you find them all and use them?

"Escape" first equal

2006-01-22T10:42:00.000Z

I'm sorry, I don't know why I didn't notice this last week. I can only assume I wasn't looking too closely since it is still outside semester time and I wasn't quite expecting the start of the rash of posters. So here - first equal prize has got to go to "Escape" since the poster I found on the bus stop heading West from opposite Pullens Lane was also advertising an event on Wednesday 18th Jan, the same night as the "Bridge" one mentioned below.

The message is the same though - bus shelters are not poster boards. Your tatty rubbish makes a mess of a fine part of town. At least there have been only one or two of them though. I await the onslaught this week and next with interest.

Phone boxes and bus shelters....

2006-01-20T11:17:00.000Z

...have transparent sides for a reason, by the way, in case some of you culprits do not see what the fuss is about.

As places where people wait, often in the dark and sometimes alone, they are intended for people to be able to see out so that in this day and age of muggers and so on they will not be taken by surprise by someone approaching. If you look at the official advertising on the BT phone boxes these days they are made up of faint lines which allow users of the box to see through the adverts. They are not completely obscured.

I know this because I sat on the Association of Councillors in the Thames Valley Administrative Region when BT asked to be allowed to do this advertising. And I'm afraid solid bits of paper plastered on the windows are not the same thing. So don't do it.

...and prize for the first culprit of the year...

2006-01-20T09:15:00.000Z

...goes to "The Bridge".

Two garish fluorescent green posters adorning the bus shelter opposite Pullen's Lane. Listen chaps - right opposite there's a poster board provided for you to use at some expense by the City Council and Oxford Brookes University. Use it and no more will be said about it. It's still a week till the students officially get back though, so no doubt this is only the start.

Fighting the flyposters

2006-01-19T09:35:00.000Z

It’s wonderful, while most students are in recess, to see our streets, lamp posts, telephone boxes, park fences, trees, pavements, footpaths and so on clear of the detritus of advertising fliers and posters that make them so tatty during term time.

Once upon a time the City Council and universities collaborated to provide “fly posting boards” in strategic places around east Oxford and Headington. But they’re no longer enough it seems, and we must be deluged with these execrable bits of paper daily while the students are here.

But I believe that the new licensing laws put some power back into the hands of neighbourhoods and residents. A bar or club can have its license reviewed at any time following complaints from the public about anti-social behaviour.

So I would like to put bar and club operators on notice that once the students return, I shall be documenting and collecting such advertising litter around my area (Headington Hill) and ask the licensing authority to do something about the many repeat offenders I find so regularly.

I believe the new law means they cannot hide behind the claim that promoters of individual nights’ events are wholly responsible for advertising if their venue appears on that advertising. Are they willing to put their licenses on the line to prove it?

How you can participate

2006-01-15T10:44:00.000Z

I don't want this blog to be just a one way thing with me rambling on about local issues and no feedback. There are two main ways you can contribute:

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If you've got a story of your own, I'm happy to let other people join the blog, making it a "team blog" and you can post whole articles that will then appear on the main page. I will "moderate" these, not so much to censor what people are writing, but just to make sure that they are not offensive or actionable. To do this you will need to have a blogging account at http://www.blogger.com/ but you don't need to have a blog of your own there if you don't want one. Once you have your blogging account, click on my profile link and email me to tell me who you are and what your blogging account name is and I'll add it to the "members" list of the blog and then you will be able to post.

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