One of the many irritants and banes of urban life which can be reported online to Bristol City Council is fly-posting (unauthorised advertising).
Your correspondent recently submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Bristol City Council via the excellent WhatDoTheyKnow on fly-posting enforcement in Bristol as a whole and the 2 inner city wards of Lawrence Hill and Easton in particular.
The text of the FoI request reads:
Dear Bristol City Council,
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.
Kindly disclose the number of:
a) fixed penalty notices issued
b) prosecutions broughtin the last 5 years for fly-posting
1. within the entire local authority area
2. within Easton & Lawrence Hill wardsYours etc.
The council has now replied. The salient part of the response – minus the copyright notice and procedure for those dissatisfied with the reply – reads as follows:
You sent us a Freedom of Information request on 12/08/2015
Your request number is CRN00017905
Our reply to your request is:
FPNs – 68 with 2x in Easton/Lawrence Hill wards
Pros – 6x with 3x in in Easton/Lawrence Hill wards
This response should answer your request in full.
Considering that Bristol is a city of 430,000 people, these figures do seem rather small, but then again so is the city council’s enforcement team (posts passim) which deals not just with fly-tipping, litter dog fouling and the like, but also fly-posting.
Perhaps consideration should also be given to redeploying the council’s excessive numbers of press and PR staff.