You now need a permit (costing £400 for a year) to give out free printed material in many areas of Oxford. Unless you're political.
You now need a permit to leaflet in these areas
In the words of out glorious leaders at the council …
“On 16 June 2011 the Council decided to designate land in the city under schedule 3A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. As from 1 September 2011 it will be an offence to distribute free printed matter on this land without first obtaining consent from Oxford City Council.”
Printed materials include: leaflets, balloons, stickers, carrier bags, wristbands, l-shirts/clothing, carrier bags, baseball caps.
Before you get angry (as I nearly did), it might not all be bad news. Printed materials for political purposes are exempt (as are those for charitable or religious/belief purposes).
A cynic might say the political purposes clause is a load of politicians making rules for us, and making sure the same rules don't apply to them. But putting my 'I'm not a lawyer' hat on for a moment, is this a positive move from the council? Might it lead to fewer commercial leaflets, whilst anarchist leaning people like me just need to make sure my flyers and stickers just need to say 'smash the state' at the bottom to be exempt (surly you don't get a lot more political that smashing the state?).
Full details of the new rules on the council's site here:
http://oxford.gov.uk/freeprintedmaterial
“On 16 June 2011 the Council decided to designate land in the city under schedule 3A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. As from 1 September 2011 it will be an offence to distribute free printed matter on this land without first obtaining consent from Oxford City Council.”
Printed materials include: leaflets, balloons, stickers, carrier bags, wristbands, l-shirts/clothing, carrier bags, baseball caps.
Before you get angry (as I nearly did), it might not all be bad news. Printed materials for political purposes are exempt (as are those for charitable or religious/belief purposes).
A cynic might say the political purposes clause is a load of politicians making rules for us, and making sure the same rules don't apply to them. But putting my 'I'm not a lawyer' hat on for a moment, is this a positive move from the council? Might it lead to fewer commercial leaflets, whilst anarchist leaning people like me just need to make sure my flyers and stickers just need to say 'smash the state' at the bottom to be exempt (surly you don't get a lot more political that smashing the state?).
Full details of the new rules on the council's site here:
http://oxford.gov.uk/freeprintedmaterial
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
let's see how they enforce it
05.09.2011 17:15
As for limiting commercial spam; I'm not so sure. Maybe the smaller businesses will get squeezed out but the big companies will just pay the council for a license!
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Everything's political...
06.09.2011 10:23
lahoski