Flyposting campaign saves the city £70,000

Edinburgh festival initiative is a huge success

A new fly-posting initiative for this year’s Edinburgh Festival proved to be a great success – saving the Council £70,000.

When Environmental Warden Chris Smith was tasked with coming up with a solution to the problems of fly-posting in the city centre during the Festival, he came up with the idea of dedicated pillars.

“We created legalised sites and got City Centre Posters in to manage it. In return, they gave us a £10,000 donation towards a city centre project involving young people.”

Instead of fringe venues clamouring to stick up posters all over the city centre, they were controlled at the legalised sites.

It was such a success that Bath City Council has expressed an interest in learning from the example set in Edinburgh, while other cities across the country are also taking note. 

Chris said: “£70,000 has been saved by the Council, which takes into account the costs of street cleaning and staffing.

“This year worked really well but next year we want to work on making it more aesthetically pleasing for taking into other areas in the city centre including the New Town.”