Hoardings

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25306, 4 October 1947, Page 8

Hoardings

The Ashburton Borough Council, which has decided not to renew the leases for hoardings in the town, is to be congratulated on a step that will both benefit the borough and set an example to other local bodies, large and small. No Christchurch citizen can have read without a twinge of shame the brief report of the Ashburton Borough Council’s discussion on the subject. When the Mayor of Ashburton was casting about for an example of unsightliness his mind turned, not to hoardings that may offend within his own borough, but to the deplorable escarpment of advertising panels bordering Railways Department land in Christchurch. The picture thus brought to the minds of the Ashburton councillors may not have been strictly relevant; but it is very easy to believe that it influenced their decision. Christchurch citizens, hardened to the sight by familiarity, do not all of them realise how badly visitors are impressed by this part of the city, the drabness and dreariness of which are emphasised rather than hidden by the huge garish hoardings. It is all too easy for those who live with ugliness to become indifferent to it. Perhaps this explains the failure of successive City Councils to take the step that Ashburton has now taken. In fairness to the City Council it must be remembered that it has no control over the hoardings on Government property. This has been used to justify the council’s long-standing policy of refusing applications for hoardings in residential areas and of permitting them, within limits, in commercial and industrial areas. There is no need to go again into the good reasons why an affront on the public in one place should be regarded as inoffensive in another. What must be pointed out now is that if Christchurch hopes to have a more pleasing setting for its new railway station and a more handsome main entrance to the city the Bailways Department will have to be persuaded to pull down its advertising panels. When, at the request of the Papanui Beautifying Association, the Railways Department removed a hoarding near the Papanui railway station, it showed that it is not without conscience in this matter. Before the City Council can reasonably make a similar request

it will have to put its own house in order by banning hoardings from all areas within its control. Christchurch citizens, who have been given a glimpse of their city through the eyes of the leading citizen of of another town, will know that this is long overdue.