Fly-posting scheme set for all-year use

A SCHEME piloted during the festival where giant poster boards were erected in a bid to cut down on fly-posters is to be rolled out throughout the year.

City council chiefs say that this year's pilot, where a private company was given a contract to manage and maintain dozens of poster boards across the city during the festival, is to be introduced across the city at gap sites and unused buildings.

The first part of the new initiative will see giant hoardings covered in images of Edinburgh and adverts from private firms being put up around a gap site on Leith Walk.

It is the latest stage of the city council's battle to cut down on fly-posters, which have been blamed by some for ruining the appearance of parts of the city.

City leaders today hailed the pilot of the scheme a "great success" and said that the scheme, run by London-based City Centre Posters, had helped save the city 100,000 it would have cost to clear up posters.

Councillor Robert Aldridge, the city's environment leader, said: "Complaints about graffiti and fly-posting have dramatically reduced during the festival and the city centre is looking great after the clean-up.

"We are keen to explore other options for spaces which attract fly-posting for the display of public information and art the whole year round. Not only will this improve the appearance of the city but it will also save time and resources in cleaning up fly-posting and graffiti."

The new scheme will mainly be focused on the outskirts of the city centre and will be managed by Glasgow-based firm The Poster Associates. The firm will get access to the sites for free but will have to manage and maintain everything within a five-metre radius of the site - meaning all graffiti, fly-posters and litter will be cleared at no cost to the council.

Some of the posters will be used to display "civic images" and adverts from bodies like tram firm TIE, the council's city development department, I Love Leith or Lothian and Borders Police. Others will be made available to private firms wanting to advertise events.

The first site will be a former petrol station at Haddington Place, on Leith Walk, which has been vacant since it was demolished and has become a hotspot for graffiti and vandalism. The proposal is expected to win planning consent at a meeting on Wednesday.

A series of official poster boards are already operated in the city centre as part of the Unight scheme, which links all 45 late licence venues in the Capital.

John McWilliams, owner of the Liquid Room - one of the clubs that was named in a 2006 council report as one of the worst fly-posting offenders, and is now part of the Unight scheme - said: "If the options are there all operators will do it the right way."We adhere to the Unight scheme and it works because it's not a free-for-all. If there's going to be more sites I can't see them not being popular."