The Vibrancy of Cambridge’s Culture is Illustrated by the Number and Variety of Posters on City Centre Railings. Photo by Prisoner 5413 (license).

I attended Cambridge City Council’s West Central Area Committee on the 18th of June 2009. During the open forum section of the meeting which is for members of the public to ask questions of councillors I asked about the recently reported overzealous removal of posters from railings, particularly church railings, by city council rangers. I asked if the city council rangers were under democratic control. I asked why the Ranger Steering Group doesn’t operate in a more open and transparent manner; I noted there was no information about its work on the City Council website. (I believe an answer to the question I asked to the December 2008 North Area Committee revealed the existence of the Ranger Steering Group for the first time.) I pointed out that this is not the first time the direction given to rangers has been controversial, reminding councillors of the thousands of cyclists stopped by rangers last year despite rangers having no powers to stop cyclists.

Response

Cllr Smith nodded while I suggested more openness and transparency with respect to the Ranger Steering Group, but no councillors took the suggestion on. Cllr Rosenstiel spoke to say that decisions such as the one to change the policy on poster removal were not made at Ranger Steering Group meetings as they do not set policy. (This raises the problem that not even the ranger steering group’s terms of reference are available publicly.) Cllr Ward, the chair of the Ranger Steering Group, who was observing, contributed to the meeting to say that in fact the question of poster removal was in-fact discussed at the steering group, they had discussed the removal of offensive material.

Cllr Rosensteil said that no decision to remove more posters had been made anywhere in the council. Other councillors confirmed that it had been verified that no change in policy had been approved by the relevant executive councillor; the identity of that councillor was not revealed (I’d guess Cllr Pitt). Cllr Rosenstiel explained that his efforts to get to the bottom of what had happened had been hampered both by the absence of a key member of City Council Staff, and in relation to one church, a lack of clarity on what their policy is with respect to posters on their railings.

Cllr Hipkin asked for a definition of fly-posting; he was told the term only referrers to posting without the permission of the property owner. The term “flyposting” does not apply to the areas were general permission from property owners for posting posters has been given, such as the railings around Great St. Mary’s Church.

A ranger present was able to correct the councillors and let them know that a change in practice had in fact occurred and rangers had been told to remove more posters from railings; he said that this instruction had come to the rangers from the city council’s “enforcement team”. He updated the councillors to let them know that as of that day a new edict had been issued; and rangers had now been told not to remove any posters at all, not even out of date or offensive ones. Their instructions were: “not to take any off” he said.

Councillors referred to the discussion they held a recent West/Central Area committee, where in response to a member of the public asking for the council to remove more posters, councillors agreed a position whereby in areas where there was permission for posters to be displayed they were to be encouraged. City Council rangers at that time were involved only in removing out of date posters.

Cllr Kightley, the meeting’s chair, summed up by saying that councillors had made clear again, as they had done at their previous meeting, what they wanted their rangers to do. They wanted to see a rapid return to the previous sensible and moderate policy.