Banners in Crouch End

[Adrian Essex]

No, not the surprisingly popular cafe with the somewhat naff mural, but long plastic things draped from railings.

I probably would not have noticed but the myriad banners draped from Crouch End's pedestrian railings have been largely cleaned up. In many ways this seems a shame - I was probably actually prompted to buy tickets by the Crouch End Player's banner for the their pantomime, and I derived a somewhat perverse pleasure from the one for the football academy with its irritatingly misplaced apostrophes.

Apparently it is Haringey policy not to allow banners draped on these railings. I can think of two reasons for this:

1) pedestrian safety - short pedestrians (children mainly) are quite difficult to see anyway,  behind the type of barrier we have in Crouch End, so motorists could easily be caught out if a child darted out from the end of one. A banner would convert 'quite difficult' into 'absolutely impossible'

2) road safety - a passing motorist who allowed his/her attention to wander onto the content of an intriguing banner would be somewhat more likely to collide, than one with full concentration. 

So two good reasons not allow banners assuming we stick with the physical layout we have at present. Another solution would be to change the way in which traffic (road and pedestrian) flows through the town centre - have a look at this set of recommendations form a recent street audit, particularly numbers 1, 8 , 9 , 10 , 16 and 19. 

Some banners have survived the cull. The Crouch End Project has come out of it well with three survivors

The Crouch End Festival 2012, one of many festivals to have been held here, also gets a look in with a banner outside Budgen's. I guess its the road safety thing that means that 3 of these 4 have been hung facing away from the road where they are all but invisible to any but those who probably already know what they say.