The M.E.N. was today issued with CCTV footage of the man - who has given his name as David Roberts to town hall chiefs - illegally fly-posting a wall in Landcross Street, Fallowfield.
Now they are urging people who may have information leading to his whereabouts to come forward.
Pete North, director of operations at the council, said he believed Mr Roberts was one of about six people responsible for 90 per cent of illegal fly-posting in the city.
He said: "We believe this man to be David Roberts, of a company called Kodamedia, but we need the public's help to find out where he lives so that we can initiate legal proceedings.
"He fly-posts persistently on brick, glass and metal surfaces, refuses to pledge to stop fly-posting and refuses to give us his address.
"This particular offence happened at night when the offender presuably thought no one would be watching. We want these `griminals' to remember that we are watching them day and night."
Manchester city council is also preparing to issue a number of record company bosses with anti-social behaviour orders as part of their campaign.
Camden council, in London, has already served three orders on marketing executives at music giants Sony and BMG.
In February, Manchester town hall chiefs named and shamed record companies Warner and Sony, whose artists include Madonna and Beyonce, for "defacing" Manchester.
It followed work by ENCAMS, the group behind the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, to get the world's leading record companies to stop fly-posting.
Coun Paul Murphy, the council's executive member for direct services and the man who spearheaded Manchester's successful 100 Days To Clean A City campaign, said the steps taken by Camden would now pave the way for Manchester to follow suit.
He said: "We warned the record companies to pledge to stop fly-posting several months ago, and while many complied, the likes of Sony ignored ENCAMS's requests. If they don't stop now, we will have no choice but to issue anti-social behaviour orders like Camden.
Magistrates can enforce the order to stop anti-social behaviour and if individuals fail to comply they face a maximum of five years in prison.
Should sentencing be tougher for illegal fly-posting?
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Most fly postering I see is on dissused buildings and warehouses which are going to look bad whatever. If anything the posters brighten them up. It is important for small local promoters to be able to advertise their nights at low cost so as to enhance the citys night life. Maybe the council should spend their money on setting up free advertising boards which can be maintained and controlled by them to assist the cities nightlife.
It's great the way Manchester City Council love to trade on the city's vibrant nightlife but then decide to clamp down on the venues and promoters who use fly posting to advertise their events. The council have also used these flyposting firms in the recent past to promote council events. Hypocrites!! Why don't they create a legal scheme like Leeds City Council have?
The Council seems to be very short sighted in it's view on fly posting. Manchester is a colourful and vibrant city, and a good deal of this is owed to it's lively music scene. Flyposting is an important tool for keeping people informed as to what's going on and without them the scene will decline. This will have a knock on effect to tourism and other industries. As for the posters themselves, in my opinion they can bring life and colour to otherwise dull cityscapes.
Fly-postering is as ugly and anti-social as litter-dropping. Stamp it out.
I think it's a joke! Manchester wouldn't be the City it is without it's vibrant nightlife, esp the underground clubs we've got. The council take the mick, I believe they have actually paid these guys who fly-post in the past to put posters up for them around the City? Work that one out... Manchester is just starting to make a mark on the clubscene, gettting back on top... Long live the guys who fly-posts and long live the underground clubs! here here!....
This is my job and my livlyhood. The council should just learn to deal with it.
I think some of the commenters above are missing the point. It is employees of huge record companies that are being targeted here.
Fly posting *does* add vibrancy to our city and inform people of evens which are happening in Manchester.
In contrast, the fly posting of adverts for big artists, or for whatever EMI wants to push as its next big single release, does nothing for the city but push more advertising on us, outside the legal channels.
So stop useless corporate fly posting, and leave the walls free for the nightclubs and festivals which deserve the space!
Fly-posters are a lot more informative than reading the drab reviews pages of the revamped yet unimpressive City Life. I guess those "cutting edge" days are well and truly over!! If it wasn't for "illegal" fly-posting, major club events wouldn't be half as good and venues will only be half full - or half empty depending on how you want to see it. This type of advertising works due to it being easily accessible to the relevant audience. It always grabs my attention in a positive way. Okay, so I imagine these posters may be difficult to remove but I would rather stare at them than be forced to tread carefully in order to avoid rows and rows of vomit and dog faeces littering our public spaces. Perhaps Manchester City Council should concentrate on clearing up the foul stench of urine outside the Town Hall extension entrance in St Peter's Square.xx
OK, what looks better? A boarded up shop with graffiti and obscenities all over it or a board with a vibrant poster on it advertising club nights that thousands of mancunians look forward to every weekend?
OK, the council is probably right in complaining if the posters were put all over Market Street, but to moan about them being on disused and derelict buildings, petrol stations and walls that they've not bothered to knock down is pointless and stupid! Why not ask the clubs to close while they're at it. How can they get attendance without promotion?? The council should worry about other more important things rather than a bit of paper on a wall!
i think its a joke. manchester city council need to sort there heads out and worry about something worth worrying about. i run a club night myself and rely heavily on fly posters to let people know of our events. i agree they shouldnt be placed anywhere but what is the harm in putting them on disused buildings etc i know i would rather look at a poster than a peice of wood....
Maybe this guy was overstepping the rules - the deal is that you can post on wood only, not glass or stone. If they are just cracking down on covering other surfaces fair enough, but cracking down altogether just aint cricket. It stops other sorts of postering like on trees and bus stops. Pragmatism is key in this situation.
I think the promotional posters informing us and visitors to our great City about local events are to be encouraged and definitely not stopped - if they are posted in areas of derelict and deprived buildings they are not a form of litter, indeed I agree they are an informative and useful media and the Council should be supporting this activity by (as already suggested) allocating prominent areas in the City free of charge where local events (club nights, new businesses etc) can be promoted and seen by everyone - if they can do it in Yorkshire then they should be spearheading the same initiative in Manchester and supporting local trade - the Council are eager to get on the back of successes in Manchester but seem unwilling to help find a compromise - o and Dave its spelt "livelihood" love - good job your posters are pre printed eh ??!! And if youre gonna stick your posters up just be careful where you put them - you could compromise too mate and not lose out but I guess time will tell - if its a listed building then dont damage our heritage sites but if its not then why not ?
Fly posting isnt just restricted to inner city dissused buildings.
Its also present in residental areas, where there is no decay,making the areas look run down and un-cared for.Many advertise 'easy' work, or dodgy deals. Why should these people get away with it,they aren't interested in making the city 'vibrant', all they're interested in is FREE advertising.SONY are one of the biggest culprits,a company that earns billions, ignoring councils instructions to cease, out of pure greed and zero respect for the residents of Mancheter concerns.Have official sites for posters, that can be maintained and PAYED for by the massive record companys, its about time they put something back into the community,instead of taking all the time.
I find the idea of putting flies in the mail to be repreh..rep..very bad thing. evil doers shame on me.
I am appalled at the way the council have treated fly posters. I just want to say that these so called 'scum' are hard working men who go out in all weathers, all times of the day and put themselves at risk of getting mugged, beaten up or worse! These 'scum' pay tax and national insurance on there wages just like everyone else, they are not drug dealers, burglers, joy riders or muggers. They have familes, wives and chidren, mortgages to pay and childcare costs to find, they do not claim benefit, tax credit, job seekers allowence, council tax reductions or any other bleeding freebie. These men do a honest days work for an honest pay, would the council be prepared to give all these men a well paid job when they put them out of work? I dont think so.So manchester council i think its about time you took your heads from up your arses and spent my hard earned tax on real council issues instead of wasting everybodys time and money on something that has been a part of manchesters culture for as long as i can remember.
And another thing, who brings all the money into manchester- the students and thenight life, if there was no advertising then it would all fall on its
arse, what if the bands decided not to play manchester anymore because it wasnt worth it for the turn out? manchester council better watch out as it seems to me (and to anyone else with any brains) that they may be shooting themselves in the foot!!
Go David were right behind you!!
i share the same veiw as the majority,fly posters look better than old boarded up buildings.
I,m a Native of Rochdale and think that anyone who vandalises walls should be fined Heavily if it is a large Company like Sony they should be find many thousands of Pounds and made to pay for cleanup too they should know better. T.T.F.N DON
its all wright going on about BIG companys and pick on them, BUT what about the other people who fly poster around the city i have seen the posters like stop the war campain and socialist worker what about issueing them with anti-social behaviour orders and they fly poster in the CITY CENTER on Fallowfield so dont pick on a few DO THEM ALL!!! or does the city council have no testicular fortitude and cant stand up to socialist worker and stop the war campin??? oh i forgot the city council is agains BIG companeys and business (but they must remember with out thoses companeys the city center would not be like it is today) and it is a socialist council agains big companeys. and if i wrong then EVERYONE will be issued with an anti-social behaviour orders about fly postering
But you live in Burnley Neil,so why are you so concerned?
Ryan in Withington,the guy on CCTV isn't putting up a poster for EMI is he?
Posters are cool on disued and derelict buildings for sure.The poster pods in the city are to expensive to use.
In reading the report in the M.E.N and Manchester Online about David Roberts, who's seems to have been singled out as Manchester's Fly-posterer, I want to make it known that there are in fact several fly-posterers opperating in the Manchester area who are making livings in this area of work. The fact that one person as been named and shamed is astounding and to be honest, quite unprofessional, that the case is being treated with the same ethics as a wich-hunt. David, who i happen to have met is an extremely inteligent and approachable man, who is far from the publics image of a vandal. He makes a living from what he does and treats his work very seriously, working long days, in all weather just like any other business man. One rule that David does abide by is that he never posters over glass or windows, so, the Manchester Evening News are blatently lying. Postering over a persons windows is seen as a personal attack on the owner, and so no windows are never touched. However, as mentioned, there are several fly-posters, and all dont carry the same morals.And what is all the fuss anyway? The Posters actualy add character to the city, they are informative of local events and bring custom to the venues of Manchester,wether it be a bands gig or a big-name act playing, its all tourism in one form or another and that is good for our economy. Posters are'nt dangerous or a harm to anyone,so why is it essential that one person is isolated for a cities 'problem'.If the local council is indeed trying to pave a way for a 'cleaner' Manchester, then why not create designated and more public-friendly sites for posters to be displayed? to work with the fly-posters? Maybe the council should use the same cctv camera's that caught David and put them to better use, like catching the culprits of constant muggings,fights and robbery's that go on in the city. Or at least the people who endlessly trash the glass bus-shelters over and over again, which the council seem only too happy to replace over and over again...... a public expense.
The idea that flyposting for local club nights is either essential or artistic is incredible. We're not talking of the days of superior Factory Records or punk aesthetics here. We're talking about sleazy, shabby, poorly designed, grot. Besides we cannot have a situation where there is a Town Hall committee to decide whether a certain poster is up to scratch or a certain nightclub promoter is too poor (or too unimaginative) to use other legitimate means of advertising. The truth is is everyone stopped at once no one would lose out.
"Tilly Floss" says flyposters look better than old boarded up buildings. That might occasionally be true but often it isn't. Boards painted plain colours or decorated by artists are much better than flyposters. The truth is flyposting is a massive cash business. It is associated with pretty heavy handed tactics as rivals muscle rivals. And it is associated with criminal activity beyond the obvious damage to buildings and illegal display of adverts.
Take one Manchester family at least three of which have been in this shabby trade. One, let's call him Vin, once had his legs broken allegedly by his sibling but is now back in business and was spouting on TV when this story broke about how the Council would be taken to court if they stopped this sleaze as he had been doing it for more than 20 years and so was protected as a cultural act by the European Union. I don't think so! Two, let's call him Mike, sitting blissed out on hard drugs at his Villa in Africa, having leased "his" round of our walls to a London firm called Diabolical Liberties. Three, the kid brother, let's call him Marcel - probably still sitting in prison after being convicted for KILLING a rival flyposter with a shotgun. Yes "Tilly" flyposting really is a lovely game and we should do everything we can to preserve it's vital cultural role ...
The Chief Exec of Shell I think it was once said that the thing about advertising is that only half of it works but the problem is nobody knows which half. There is plenty of proof that local club advertising by flyposter does not really work. Take Saturday night Students' nights at Man Uni and at MMU. The first DOES NOT use flyposting, the second DOES. Both are successful. There are plenty of other examples. As Chris Paul said if every club promoter and venue stopped and switched to websites, fliers, email lists, press and marketing, and so on the whole thing could move up a notch - and in a cleaner environment. Manchester is full of litter despite the best efforts of our Council grot workers. Punters are far more likely to drop litter if the walls are covered in grot already. And the same goes for less trivial crime.
It Doesn't Work Anyway
City Centre Business (No Flies On Us)
Jaynie! that actually wasn't the 'David Roberts' that posted his comment on this site so it doesn't really matter if his posters are pre-printed or not really! there is a lot of David Roberts in the World!