New Advertising in Dublin

Council swaps ad space for bikes, toilets
From:ireland.com
Wednesday, 14th February, 2007

Dublin City Council is to allow one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies to erect 120 permanent advertising panels across the city in exchange for 500 bicycles and four public toilets.

The bicycles are to be available for the public to rent, for a fee yet to be decided.

A multimillion euro contract signed with advertisers JC Decaux will see advertisement panels on O’Connell Street within six months. The council will receive no money from the advertising but in addition to the bicycles and toilets will get a number of signposts, freestanding maps and “heritage trail” posts.
Many of the advertising panels would be seven square metres (75sq ft) in size, but the majority would be two square metres. The smaller ones would be approximately the size of a bus shelter advertisement. Both structures would be freestanding, double-sided and illuminated.

The details of the contract have not been disclosed but it is estimated that the advertising space sold on the panels would be worth at least €1 million every year to JC Decaux.

Councillors reacted angrily to the scheme yesterday saying the city management was “selling the public footpath” and “almost prostituting itself” to the company.

The company has agreed to provide and maintain 500 “city bikes” at 25 locations around the city. People renting the bicycles would be able to collect them from and return them to any station. Users would have to register their details with the council and provide credit card details to prevent theft.

JC Decaux has run a similar scheme in Lyon in France.

The company plans to erect six of the two square metre panels on O’Connell Street and one on Grafton Street. The seven square metre panels will be located in areas such as Parnell Street, Capel Street and Church Street.

JC Decaux has applied to the council for planning permission for the sites for the 120 agreed structures. The company will pull out of the scheme if it does not get planning permission for 75 per cent of the panels. If it gets permission for less than 100 per cent of the panels, the number of “public realm enhancements” will be correspondingly reduced.

“We are selling the public footpath for 500 bikes and four public conveniences . . . Dublin City Council has been short-changed,” Labour Cllr Emer Costello said at a meeting on the issue yesterday.

Deputy Lord Mayor Aodh

In fairness to DCC none of their councilors have to the best of my knowledge been named by a tribunal as having done anything corrupt.

How has the position varied from €90m below

From the Irish Times Saturday April 15 2006

Plan to halve number of large ad hoardings
Olivia Kelly

Dublin City Council proposes to halve the number of large advertising hoardings in the city under new plans to regulate outdoor advertising.

In return the company will provide a number of facilities, which the council calls “public realm enhancements”, including the long-awaited citywide public bike rental scheme, in a contract that could be worth €90 million to the council.

shrunk to €400k of bikes and public toilets and a few signposts in the space of 10 months?

Where are the specifics on the hoardings to be removed?

Why isn’t the full commercial potential being exploited from locations where there are no detrimental effects to urban amenity and used to fund the councils legal department to go after seriel planning law offenders?

@lostexpectation wrote:

its till very unclear if the bikes are directly connected to the new large signs?

The advertising hoards have nothing to do with the location of the bikes. From todays independent:

It’s city bikes for all – but they have to be recycled!

ON yer bike Dubs – but don’t forget to leave them back.

The 500 public bicycles which are to be located around Dublin are “virtually vandal proof” according to the City Council, in what surely smacks of “famous last words”.

Sceptics might fear that some less civic-minded Dubs may not be inclined to return the bikes, which will be emblazoned in Dublin colours.

There are fears the bicycles might suffer the same fate as that perennial urban unfortunate – the abandoned shopping trolley. However, each bike has an on-board computer to track its movement.

Their unique design ensures they cannot suffer punctures and there are no visible wires.

“The proposed Dublin City Bicycle is of a new generation and the result of over a decade of continuous and extensive investment,” says the council.

The bikes are to be located at 25 key locations such as St Stephen’s Green. They will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will be branded with the Dublin City Council logo.

They are being introduced across the city by one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, JC Decaux, in exchange for permission to erect 120 permanent advertising billboards.

Over 60pc of the new advertising space will be dedicated to giving civic information to citizens and visitors to the capital.

Part of the deal involves the removal of 1,800 current billboards. The bicycles should be in place within the next six months, along with the new network of variable message electronic billboards.

Fine Gael Councillor Naoise O Muire said yesterday that criticism of the plan was unfair.

He said that the scheme had showed creativity and was a worthwhile step in the right direction.

Amsterdam pioneered the free bicycle system, but in Dublin there will be a small charge for their use.

Treacy Hogan

The usual hooray-for-everything, misleading piece by Hogan]does not [/U]involve the removal of 1,800 current billboards – but in fact only 25% of the billboards belonging to JCDecaux. There is going to be a lot more on this…

^^ Mmm Nice :rolleyes: Thats only one of the smaller ones btw – the so-called metro-poles are far larger + much more intrusive; in any event in Dublin the smaller ones are to be at ground level.

The more this saga goes on the worse it becomes –

Helpful place that the DCC website is, it provides the law as to how applications ought to be made when the LA is a direct beneficary:

“These are planning applications by internal departments in Dublin City Council, made under Part 8 of the Planning & Development Regulations 2001. Members of the public have 6 weeks from the date of lodgement of the application to make objections. There is no fee in this case. A recommendation is made by the Planning Department, and then listed on the Agenda for City Council meeting for approval by elected members, prior to commencement of development.“

So remind me again – no Part 8 and no section 183 by councilors disposing of public lands???

The public have been shafted by a sham proceess.

@hutton wrote:

^^

The more this saga goes on the worse it becomes –

Helpful place that the DCC website is, it provides the law as to how applications ought to be made when the LA is a direct beneficary:

“These are planning applications by internal departments in Dublin City Council, made under Part 8 of the Planning & Development Regulations 2001. Members of the public have 6 weeks from the date of lodgement of the application to make objections. There is no fee in this case. A recommendation is made by the Planning Department, and then listed on the Agenda for City Council meeting for approval by elected members, prior to commencement of development.“

So remind me again – no Part 8 and no section 183 by councilors disposing of public lands???

The public have been shafted by a sham proceess.

Hutton

The Part 8 procedure is intended for when the local authority carries out work (or has others carry it out on their behalf). The site notices would be erected by the local authority. I don’t think that is the case here? Extract from Regs below:

Notice of proposed development.

81. (1) A local authority shall, in accordance with this article,—

(a) give notice of proposed development in an approved newspaper, and
(b) erect or fix a site notice or site notices on the land on which the proposed development would be
situated.

I give up on the ‘disposal of public lands’ issue.

@hutton wrote:

Fair enough]http://www.dublincity.ie/sitetools/faq/faq_planning/planning_-_local_authority_works_laws_.asp[/url] …or google it with this: What are Local Authority Works (LAWS)? #5762

Well, I do understand the anxiety about the issue and I fully agree that the ,em, publicrealm, is already cluttered and uncontrolled. Certainly the pictures posted earlier are pretty awful – but I hope DCC would not permit such things in Dublin. Has anyone an image from the applications (sorry if one has been posted and I missed it 😮 ). I have tried DCC online but the documents have not yet been uploaded.

I honestly don’t know if this is a PPP? If it is then I would expect that this should be explicitly stated in the applications. I expect it is more in the nature of the usual ‘horse trading’ that goes on – planning gain in exchange for favourable decisions. If it is a PPP then there would, in my view, be a case for DCC to answer.

Again I agree that multiple applications make it difficult to contest – but it would probably be impossible to lodge an omnibus application as it could not comply with the requirements of the Regulations (drawings, site location maps etc).

Re. what constitutes ‘Local Authority Works’ – this is set out in Part 8, Article 80 of the Regs; click on

http://www.environ.ie/DOEI/DOEIPol.nsf/0/fad163d4e576ac3a80256fa3003d0f77/$FILE/part08.pdf

I will have a look at one of the files next week.:)

Memo from JCDecaux:

Substitute ‘free bikes’ for ‘Trojan horse.’ Watch what happens.

Now that’s reaaaaaaaal purdy….
God that’s intrusive and has to be a drivers distraction.

Could you post the link on that I would be interested to see the points that they make.

Re: Payment; which charity do you want me pay possibly you would like to buy 3 acres of endangered rain forrest through the World Land Trust or an appeal through An Taisce or is it the ctesiphon pension fund? 😀

The last time I was last in the NL they had these type of ads on dual carriageway-type roads leading to the main commercial districts, and the ring road dualer around the city – they actualy look alright because they’re on N11-type roads where it’s predominantly through-traffic.

I could see these on some parts of the N11, but not where the DCC wants to put them. This type of advertising is not meant for Ireland.