Hillaballoo

I’ve just been contacted by Lewisham council to warn me that I should be liable for a fine of £75 per poster for all the Hillaballoo posters we put on trees. That could come to about £7500. The reason we put up so many posters? Because someone kept ripping them down. I thought it was mystifyingly antisocial behaviour. It turns out that that someone was the council, acting on complaints. It’s a shame that nobody (the council or the complainers) thought to contact us via the details on the poster so that we could start being law abiding. The law is the Clean Neighbourhoods Act, which is news to me, even though I’m a pretty avid news reader. I wonder how many other charities and community groups are being threatened with fines out of ignorance? Apparently, the lawful option is to flyer every house. But to my mind it is a far less acceptable practice, because it wastes far more paper, and puts litter into people’s houses. Anyway, I’m getting away with a caution. And the positive outcome is that Lewisham will help us have a community noticeboard so that we don’t have to deface the poor trees anymore.