Outdoor ads are a city scourge

It’s been done before. In 2007, the Mayor of São Paulo, Brazil, implemented a “Clean City Law” against visual pollution. More than 15,000 billboards and 300,000 oversized storefront signs were removed. Other cities, including New York, Chennai (India), Paris and Grenoble (France), and Bristol (UK) have faced pressure to ban outdoor advertising.

In Johannesburg, a vast criminal exercise has recently seen hundreds of large structures rapidly planted in prime locations before a September 30 false “grace period” deadline.

Unscrupulous people have deliberately misinterpreted a City of Johannesburg notice aimed at regularising the industry.

It’s like a fools’ gold rush, except this time people are staking their claims by planting concrete foundations and steel frames on which to erect huge advertisements.

Ward 90, which I represent, has been badly affected along Sandton Drive, William Nicol Drive, Oxford Road, Jan Smuts Avenue and Rivonia Road.

Some of South Africa’s most valuable road reserves and public open spaces have been defaced by people trying to make a quick buck through deception.

The scourge has hit many parts of the city; anywhere where visibility is at a premium. Culprits have spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of rands on materials and labour.

They’re expecting to cash in by charging high rates for the city-owned spaces they have claimed.

Johannesburg’s outdoor advertising industry is worth billions.

In a sworn affidavit last month, I formally asked the SA Police Service to investigate and prosecute. The city has been preparing an interdict listing many of the structures.

Damning allegations against named individuals are doing the rounds.

While these big-time crooks must be brought to book, there is also clutter at the other end of the scale with smaller adverts festooning poles, walls, trees etc.

Nearly all of them are illegal, so too are billboard trailers placed in strategic sites along major roads and in public parks.

To police all this, all the time, is impossible. Some councillors, myself included, carry side-cutters in our cars.

We snip the cable ties, string or wire securing illegal adverts to poles etc. Illegal posters can be left at refuse sites.

The bigger structures are best left to the authorities because of legal complications. But people like me can help remove the smaller stuff.

If it doesn’t have an authorisation sticker, it’s illegal. If it’s on the same pole as, or obscures, a traffic sign, it must come down, chop-chop.

Of course illegal adverts are not the only things that make our city look grubby. All must be dealt with. But the September 30 chancers must not be indulged.

In São Paulo, the ban was gradually lifted after a decade. Tightly controlled, limited advertising can help economic growth. Left unchecked, it devalues the city.

We need a São Paulo-type offensive as part of a wider campaign to clean-up Joburg. Would you sign a petition banning outdoor advertising?

Martin Williams, DA councillor and former editor of The Citizen.

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