SAVING THE COUNTRYSIDE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 283, 11 April 1929, Page 4

SAVING THE COUNTRYSIDE.

THE advertising fiends who are striving to disfigure the countryside are not being allowed to have it quite their own way in England. Publicity and demonstration are being used to arouse public opinion and there is growing feeling against the disfiguring sign. Commencing in Leicester last year, exhibitions have been arranged of photographs of typical examples of disfigurement. “ One bad example is taken from the popular road over the moors between Whitby and Scarborough, where next to a stone cottage is an artificial wood tea shop, then a garage covered with ugly signs, and next a glaring bicycle advertisement ” (says the Times). “The growing horror of the enamel sign will be vividly illustrated in views taken near Kenilworth and Warwick and on the road between Dunchurch and Coventry. Garages smothered with these disfiguring objects will be contrasted with some neat and inoffensive petrol stations on the Kingston by-pass. Attention is to be concentrated particularly on this new peril. Enamel signs are said to be multiplying at a great pace. Some villages have as many as 60 or 70 plastered over their walls, and many of them are said to be practically ineffective. So serious has the matter become that thoughts are being turned to the possibility of legislation. Some of the worst of these sights will be seen in the exhibition. At the same time proofs are shown of the success of the exhibition method. Several bad patches near Leicester were cleared- up as the result of the exhibition held there.” It is to be hoped that the campaign of preaching the gospel “ Saving the Countryside ” may soon spread to this Dominion. It will not be before it is needed.