STREET SIGNS IN LONDON

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26869, 23 October 1952, Page 9

STREET SIGNS IN LONDON

Ban In Trafalgar Square (Rec. 8 pm.) LONDON, October 22. Sir Harold Webbe, Conservative M.P. for the Cities of London and Westminster, has joined the battle of Trafalgar Square which has been going on in the Westminster City Council and in the columns of almost every London newspaper on the merits and demerits of illuminated advertising signs round Trafalgar Square, which the council has decided must come down. Speaking at a meeting of Conservatives in Knightsbridge Sir Harold Webbe said that the council’s ban on ■the signs was “a hopeless mistake” Bind that Trafalgar Square without was just “a Black Hole of Calcutta.” *

The City Council, he said, had no mandate from the people to ban advertisements. If Londoners did not like the signs they would find a way of Showing it, but he had not heard anyone ask for their removal “except for a few of the artistic fraternity and we have to look out for those beggars because they gave us the Festival ot Britain and an appalling collection of monuments.”

Sir Harold Webbe added: “Nelson atop his column must feel a little less lonely when he can look at the ad-

vertisements—not very artistic or inspiring, but signs of a city in which real people live and do business. “I think Trafalgar Square is magnificent and I have looked at it as often as some of these long-haired Smtlemen pretend to have done. The ct that there are signs which I can see if I turn round does not upset me. If there were twice as many, Trafalgar would still be a great naval victory, the National Gallery would still be the home of the finest collection of pictures in the world, and St. Martins would still be a holy place pointing e delicate pearl-grey finger to

•Tf anyone can tell me that the square loses its dignity by being reminded that ordinary people still live in this city, I don’t believe him. I thought wiser thoughts would prevail. We ere being made dull enough by circumstances. Let us keep a bit of merriment, even if it is neon lighting.”