The Lib Dem controlled Wokingham Borough Council propose to ban advertising of Airports and airlines, petrol and diesel vehicles, fried and fast foods, chocolates, sweets and less healthy foods.....the list goes on...this ban would cost council taxpayers £78k in lost revenue and would I suspect tie council officers in knots trying to define what should be banned, increasing costs further.
A couple of examples of the illogicality of this policy are that airline advertising would be banned, but under current proposals, not cruises, which are more polluting per passenger. The second-highest polluting business, according to the UN, is fast fashion, but not a peep from the Council on that.
I think that Council officers' time could be better spent improving services, not introducing ill-thought-through rules to ban advertising of random categories of products.
We saw at scrutiny that there was a lack of clarity over whether advertising of 'healthy' products, such as McDonald's fruit, would be allowed. There are laws already in place to protect children from inappropriate advertising, and we should stick to implementing these. This is overreach... what do you think?
