Billboard Ban a Waste of Time and Money

The majority of Aucklanders believe the city’s billboards are not an issue and that the Auckland City Council is wasting ratepayers’ time and money in seeking to ban billboards from Auckland City.

A Colmar Brunton survey into the attitudes of Aucklanders towards billboards found almost 65 percent of Aucklanders thought the level of billboards in the City was about right while 81 percent agreed council was wasting time and money in seeking to ban them.

A huge majority of 89 percent believed the Auckland City Council should focus on the more pressing issues facing the City while just 2 percent thought that billboards created visual pollution in downtown Auckland.

“We’ve struggled to understand Council’s motivation in seeking such a draconian new bylaw when the billboard industry is willing to work with Council on better enforcement of the existing bylaw,” says Outdoor Advertising Association of New Zealand chairman, Duncan Harris.

“This survey confirms that there is no public demand or appetite for this proposed Auckland-wide ban on billboards and that people in our city feel the Council should find better ways to spend our ratepayers’ funds. In fact, when those surveyed were told about the $750,000 contribution in advertising the industry gives to charities every year, 55 percent of the public felt more positive about billboards.”

The survey found that 40% of Aucklanders liked billboards while 69 percent felt they provided useful information about products and services. Only 19 percent of Aucklanders supported Council’s proposed ban on billboards.

“Council says the ban will improve the visual amenity of the city and reduce clutter for pedestrians,” says Mr Harris. “But only 7 percent of Aucklanders said there were too many billboards or felt they cluttered the landscape. This compares with the 15 percent who said they brightened the city and hid the ugly areas and the 44 percent who said they found them amusing and funny.

“The billboard industry agrees with the 89 percent of Aucklanders who feel Council should have better things to do with ratepayers’resources but we also agree with Council that improvements can be made to our industry and we want to work with them on improving our City.

“But, instead of working together we have a drastic new billboard and signage proposal that affects at least 75% of the billboards across Auckland.

“None of that makes sense when there is clearly no pressing public demand.”

NB: A survey before Christmas of more than 400 business owners in Newmarket found more than 91 percent of businesses opposed the proposed changes.

ENDS

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