Forum Topic

Statutory Notice Spending

Interesting piece this, as the council look to save money on this service requirement. I refer to this particular section:'About three quarters of the spending last year was on traffic orders, with the balance made up by statutory consultation materials and other kinds of public notices.Nearly £100,000 out of the £108,395 was spent with PWR Media which is the publisher of the Hounslow Herald.According to a source at the council, the cost for statutory notices starts at around £400 and can be more depending on the size of the advertisement.The legislation governing traffic orders and other public notices states that they must be placed in a ‘newspaper in general circulation’. The Hounslow Herald is from time to time deposited at various drop off points throughout the borough and the council deems this meets the requirement of the law.'Well I'm glad that someone at Hounslow believes this meets lawful requirements because here in Isleworth copies of 'The Herald' are as rare as hen's teeth. If you are exceptionally lucky and you also shop in Tesco you might just very occasionally see a copy, otherwise tough sh*t  - you will not. The two publications you see most regularly are The Hounslow Chronicle and The Richmond & Twickenham Times neither of which contain official notices from LBH, which surely means a sizeable proportion of borough residents are left in the dark. Very democratic.

Vanessa Smith ● 47d21 Comments

This has been a long slow death rather than something sudden. A lot of my contemporaries worked at local titles and loved it despite the low pay and sometimes mundane nature of the coverage they had to do. None of them are in the industry any more and the key turning point across the country seems to be when councils abandoned using ABC circulation figures to determine where notices should be placed.Once readership numbers ceased to matter, so did the quality of reporting which allowed publishers to dispense with journalists. There is a view that the local newspaper industry is in crisis but it isn't by cutting costs and locking in a guaranteed revenue stream, profit margins for the remaining players are better than they have ever been due to the monopoly position they enjoy. The only problem is the newspapers have stopped serving their communities and don't publish any news.

Felicity Caborn ● 25d

I'm not sure about Hounslow but the council in Ealing needs to take its share of responsibility of the death of newspapers in the borough. There used to be two papers, the Ealing Gazette and the Ealing Times. The Gazette was not terrible and readily available in all newsagents but the Times was a bit of an afterthought of the Dimbleby Group which was based in Richmond and had a tiny circulation in the borough. I think I am right in saying that they under bid the Gazette for the council's statutory notice business on the basis that it was cheaper and the Gazette had held the administration up to proper scrutiny whereas the Times just reprinted council press releases. I think it is safe to assume the reduction of the risk of negative stories about them was a bigger factor for the council than the money saved. This sent the business in the area into a death spiral as Mirror Group, which was the owner of the Gazette at the time had no choice but to cut resources in the borough. Eventually the Times folded after the Gazette got the business back only after becoming a similarly tiny circulation title with no critical reporting of the council.

Andrew OSullivan ● 28d

Ealing have or had a similar email alert system but, as you describe in Hounslow, it was difficult to arrange it so it only gave you relevant notices.  I unsubscribed after months of it filling up my email inbox. The problem with the yellow lamppost notices that Ealing use is that old ones stay up for such a long time that you tend to assume any you see are out of date.

Anita Blake ● 31d

I have complained aboutthis in the past but the officers actually see it as a problem arising from local newspapers having largely died.Hounslow have a new planning system recently and you can get emails of planning applications in the area you define as of interest. To start with I couldn't get it ot work but it does now and I get loads of emails because I defined the search very large (everything within 2Km if I recall). I will refine it soon - you can sort by area and by tyoes of applicationshttps://planningandbuilding.hounslow.gov.uk/NECSWS/ES/Presentation/account/applicantLogOn?returnUrl=/NECSWS/ES/Presentation/Planning/OnlinePlanning/OnlinePlanningAreaNotification?applicationType=0&alertId=0

Guy Lambert ● 31d

Some years ago I had a conversation with an Ealing councillor about digitisation of services. He was very much in favour and since then many of the opportunities we discussed have been exploited. One thing he said couldn't be brought online was the publicity for council notices as he said newspapers were the principle way that the elderly got information about their area.  Over a decade on, I would guess that the majority of older people are online and even if they are not, there is no practical way they can access a local newspaper in either Ealing or Hounslow.

Andrew OSullivan ● 31d

As you point out earlier, this is probably against the law but there is no way that either Hounslow or Ealing will face any consequences.The government appear to be turning a blind eye to keep Reach Plc afloat with the Tories wanting to support the ailing Daily Express and Labour keen to keep The Mirror in action. Reach publishes The Gazette and therefore hovers up a huge amount of revenue in west London while not providing a news source of any value. There is something to be said for not pulling the plug on a good section of the national press but Reach has been increasing dividends to shareholders over the last decade while cutting titles and staff. Just like the water companies, they take a guaranteed income from the taxpayer and do a poor job.

Felicity Caborn ● 37d

It is not clear how Chiswick residents in the Ealing part of W4 are supposed to be kept informed. Since the Fishers Lane closure I go to Sainsbury's less often, so theoretically I could have picked up a copy of the paper even though it was outside the borough. These days we do our big shop more often in Acton but I don't think The Gazette is sold in Morrisons or Lidl or any newsagents, so how is the council's obligation to notify us being fulfilled?

Anita Blake ● 38d

The Ealing Gazette stopped publishing several years ago, possibly before Covid. It was published by Reach which has now consolidated its West London coverage into the Gazette which also 'covers' Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. Some newsagents sell it - in Chiswick I think there are copies in the newsstand at Sainsbury's but it is mainly made of of notices with little news content.

Felicity Caborn ● 39d

Unless I'm completely losing it, I could swear I saw a copy of the Ealing Gazette in Sainsbury's Chiswick recently. Not by the door but in with the other newspapers.

peter king ● 43d

I have received letters from LBH planning about proposed works near my flat which might be of interest to me. I don't know what criteria they are using to decide who to notify but perhaps the whole system needs reviewing given the semi-demise of widely-read local papers.

Richard Greenhough ● 43d

The late, lamented by many, Ealing Gazette. This used to be a local newspaper that covered, and held to account, most council meetings had wonderful sports coverage lead by a great Sports Editor, Tim Street and had really good and engaged local news reporters.It's acquisition led to the offices moving time and time again and the last I heard it was based in High Wycombe (so much for local).  Every newsagent had a dump bin full of copies each week. None now give it space and the last time I saw acopy was at a dump bin in Asda, Park Royal which had hundreds of (still wrapped) copies.

N V Brooks ● 43d

I have seen them from time to time, but once the rain gets in them they are unreadable anyway, and that also relies on people walking to see them - you haven't a hope if you're in a car or on a bike. Publishing stuff in freebies that have unreliable and selected (if you're lucky) distribution seems disingenuous to say the least, and LBH need reminding people have neither the time nor inclination to constantly delve into their awful Website.

Vanessa Smith ● 43d

Do they no longer have to put a copy of a planning application on a nearby lamppost ?

Richard Greenhough ● 43d

What about the Information Commissioner? Hounslow seem to rely on their bloody awful website for everything, and seem to believe that there are numerous people out there who do nothing during the day but troll through it to see what they are up to. It is a joke, and it is supposed to be democratic. 'Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be'

Vanessa Smith ● 43d

I don't think the council is that bothered about distribution locations. This example is from Ealing but the same thinking seems to apply. A friend of mine tried to challenge a conversion near his home, the first thing he knew about was when work started. He sought advice from a planning specialist and asked how could approval be needed if no reasonable attempt was made to notify him. The relevant notice was published in a paper called The Gazette which he still has no idea where he would be able to get a copy near his home. The legal advice given was that the council clearly was not following the law in the way that it notified residents but that, essentially, a planning authority marks its own homework so routinely dismisses any objections made on that basis. The only way to challenge it would be by judicial review which would be extremely expensive and best case would probably only lead to the application having to be resubmitted with zero chance of having the project stopped.

Anita Blake ● 43d

I know this really is stating the bleedin' obvious but why on earth weren't the distribution locations part of the deal to start with?

Vanessa Smith ● 44d

This isn't a Chiswick specific problem. No part of the borough seems to have easy access to this newspaper. The one exception appears to be the Civic Centre where copies are left in reception which appears to be enough to have convinced some councillors and some council officers that the system is working as it should and £100,000 is being well spent.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 44d

Like Julian, I don't think I've ever seen a copy of the Hounslow Herald, which simply confirms my view that a suitable motto for LBH would be 'Ubi Chiswick?'

Colin Jordan ● 45d

The broader consideration here is that allowing online news publishers to carry public notices would lead to the closure of many local printed newspapers, which unlike the Herald, are valued by the communities that they serve. The government clearly doesn't want councils to reap the savings that would result from a clarification of the law.The way round it would be to have a higher readership qualification to be classed as being 'in general circulation' which would target the zombie newspapers which have sprung up to harvest public notice revenue.

Felicity Caborn ● 45d

CW4 and other platforms are effectve means of public communication.I have frequently supported their argument to publish planning, licensing and other statutory notices.LBH disagrees citing contemporary legislationChange is required.John

John Richard Todd ● 46d

The situation is even worse if you live in Ealing borough. There is no local paper so the chance of you spotting a notice that might affect you is zero. For planning they do at least put up very visible yellow notices on streetlights but for anything else it will slip under the radar unless other residents raise concerns.

Andrew OSullivan ● 46d

Ive never seen one i dont thinkI wonder what the circulation numbers are. That might reveal why one does not see one and at the same time having a few you know what coming in. Who knows

Julian Pavey ● 47d