Well. This will be embarrassing for Croydon Council leader Tony Newman just as he packs his bucket and spade for a weekend jolly by the seaside on a Labour group “awayday” to Eastbourne.
Whoops: a Boxpark poster has been splattered across a shop which Croydon Council wants to re-open as a trendy art gallery next month
Boxpark, which has been in receipt of a juicy £3 million loan of public money from Croydon Council, backed by Newman, may be spending some of its generous marketing budget by fly-posting across the borough.
Such activity may, in some, instances be illegal.
In one case, someone has fly-posted a giant-sized logo for the hipster food and drink hall on the windows of a shop on Portland Road. The shop is currently undergoing a refit, paid for by Croydon Council, as part of a regeneration effort in South Norwood. It is just up the road from Newman’s own Woodside ward.
Boxpark posters have been slapped on to other sites around the borough, too, and these cases have been reported by local councillors, including at least one cabinet member, to the council department responsible for clearing up fly-tipping and other anti-social conduct.
It means that Council Tax-payers’ money will have to be used to clear up the mess.
The shop where a council-backed art gallery is to open has been fly-posted
The Portland Road fly-posting instance has occurred on the property where, as Inside Croydon has reported, Elizabeth James hopes to open a gallery next month, in a shop provided for her by Croydon Council as part of a competition through its South Norwood regeneration project.
Of course, it is usually only abandoned shops and properties in areas regarded as being run-down which face the scourge of fly-posting.
The matter may not be black and white – unlike the posters.
It is not known whether Boxpark accepts responsibility for this outbreak of fly-posting around the borough – though if the company, of which founder Roger Wade is the sole director, is not conducting the fly-posting campaign, then it is hard to imagine who else might carry it out on the their behalf.
Inside Croydon called one of the three (or is it four?) public relations companies which Boxpark has hired to promote its business, to see what they have to say about the company’s fly-posting campaign.
But it is Friday, and they were out to lunch.
They never did call back, as the bloke on reception said that they would.
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