Ban Outdoor Advertising in Exeter

To the residents of Exeter, people who work in Exeter and visit Exeter, together with those who love Exeter…

In an increasingly commercialised world, people should have the freedom to choose when they are exposed to advertising. In public open spaces we should be free from private and commercial interest and advertising should not be allowed to disfigure our city.

We are Citizens not Consumers.

Imaging how much more beautiful our city could be if it were not covered up by ugly advertising hoardings.

Sao Paulo, Auckland, Bergen, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and 1,500 towns throughout the world have already banned external advertising. In the UK, Bristol has a campaign to ban outdoor adverts. Plymouth has already banned adverts for pay-day loan companies, whilst Leeds, Newcastle and Bristol are considering it. We should add our wonderful city to the growing movement to reclaim our open spaces.

CONSUMER PRESSURE:
Excessive advertising encourages us to run ever faster on the treadmill of modern consumer life with damaging consequences. It contributes to growing consumer debt and to the consumption of ever increasing amounts of the earth’s finite resources.

Additionally advertising is increasingly sowing the seeds of unhappiness by persuading the consumer to be dissatisfied with what they have got, and so creating an artificial need to buy the next thing.

Evidence from the Good Childhood Inquiry indicates that the most vulnerable groups to commercial pressures - children and young people - show higher rates of mental health problems.

Removing advertising in public spaces, such as billboards, would free us in our outdoor environment from the pressure to consume and allow us to see previously obscured parts of our city. Any remaining empty spaces can be reclaimed for the purpose of art, poetry and inspiring social campaigns (e.g. volunteering, encouraging recycling).

VISUAL POLLUTION:
Currently there are laws on air pollution, noise pollution and light pollution - now is the time to take back our city from this visual pollution so that we can be citizens rather than just consumers. There is no doubt that the removal of advertising can change the appearance of our city enormously and allow us to see parts of the city previously hidden to us, opening up new exciting vistas.

For more information see – “The Advertising Effect”
http://www.compassonline.org.uk/publications/the-advertising-effect-how-do-we-get-the-balance-of-advertising-right/

Joint campaign by Exeter Friends of the Earth and Steady State Devon