Here are four signs I saw yesterday. I have questions.
This sign is wrapped round a bollard outside Blackfriars station.
Save £300 here by not littering.
From April 2026 the fine for dropping litter in the City of London is increasing to £300.
Don't litter, it's a waste of money!
Q: What was my first thought?
£300's a lot for dropping a bit of litter! Sure litter's bad, but £300?
Q: Where has £300 come from?
I checked the City of London website but I can't find anything anywhere about £300 fines for littering. I can find news from April 2019 titled "New clampdown on City littering as fines rise" when the maximum fine went up from £80 to £150. To be specific, that's a Fixed Penalty Notice charge of £80 if paid within 10 days and a maximum of £150 if not paid. The maximum now seems to have doubled, but why?
Q: Has the government just changed something?
In April 2018 the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs raised the maximum on-the-spot fine for littering from £80 to £150. Last month they increased the maximum to £500 (£500!) in statutory guidance. It sounds like the City of London decided to duck beneath the maximum but still doubled their fine from £150 to £300. So it could have been much worse?
Q: And what is litter anyway?
That's in the government guidance too, although it's not entirely specific. "Litter is most commonly assumed to include materials that are improperly discarded and left by members of the public, often associated with smoking, eating and drinking". That would include a discarded coffee cup, a stubbed cigarette or a scrap of silver paper torn from a packet of Polos, wouldn't it? For £300. So yes, be careful out there!
Q: Could councils solve their financial problems by employing more litter spotters?
I don't think it's as simple as that, otherwise there'd be loads more parking enforcement agents too?
This sign is at a bus stop on the St Helier estate.
Excursion buses stop here
Q: What were excursion buses?
They'll have been some jolly outbound thing, maybe weekends and holidays, to places like stately homes, hills or the coast. Maybe London Transport ran them and they had special route numbers, or maybe they were private coaches the public could catch. I bet they haven't run for years, likely decades, yet this white tile somehow lingers on.
Q: Why is it here?
The Rosehill estate is proper council housing, within London second only to Becontree. Catching an excursion bus is thus just the sort of thing local residents would have done, just as residents of Chelsea or Notting Hill wouldn't. A single gathering point by the Rosehill roundabout thus perhaps makes sense?
Q: Are there any more of these tiles anywhere?
Using my search skills I've found another 'excursion buses' tile outside The London Cancer Hub in Belmont. It wouldn't have been The London Cancer Hub in those days, obviously. This suggests an excursion route heading south through Sutton, but to where?
This sign is at Wandle Park tram stop.
Q: That's the wrong typeface isn't it?
It's certainly not the modern TfL font, it's not quite chunky enough. More likely a leftover from the early days, perhaps circa 2000? Although the small green roundel says 'Tramlink' and that was only the design between 2008 and 2016. It's still over 10 years old though. If all the other tram stops have had their signs updated (have they?) then why not this one?
This sign is on the door of a block of flats in Croydon town centre.
Polite notice
I am but a fragile little door
Please wait until I go bleep bleep before pushing me
Please ensure the door is closed behind you when entering and exiting the building
Thankyou
Q: Does phrasing it like this actually help?
It's a bit twee isn't it? There again maybe this way of drawing attention is better than a dry instruction? I wonder if it's the delivery drivers rather than the residents causing the issue?
Q: Why has this block of flats got such a feeble door?
Yes that's the real question, There wouldn't be an issue if the design of the door was sturdier, it's the architects we should be blaming. Aha, the flats were built in 2022 by Brick by Brick, Croydon council's arms-length development company, and they went bust that year with stonking debts. Apparently they'd been loaned £200m, a significant contributor to the council being declared bankrupt with £1.5bn of debts, and never earned enough profit to pay any of the money back.
Q: What did peoplesayabout Brick by Brick?
» "Residents of three Brick by Brick developments finally met with the Mayor of Croydon this week to discuss the litany of problems they have experienced since purchasing their properties."
» "PwC reported that Brick By Brick had significantly underperformed against its business plan and that its financial governance arrangements were lacking."
» "Greater due diligence on the sites in terms of site information, utilities etc would have reduced the abortive design work and the number of design iterations."
» "One significant Brick by Brick development, Red Clover Gardens in Coulsdon, remains as yet unsold, its 157 flats still sitting vacant, in the middle of a housing crisis, close to two years since the build was finished."
Q: Isn't it amazing where spotting a sign can lead you?
In this case to a Council Housing Partner with debt issues, a reputation for inadequate construction and no way of holding them to account. It seems this 'fragile little door' is just a byproduct of an inadequate political system, and the wording is perhaps a despairing cry from the unfortunate residents saddled with Bleep Bleep ineptitude?
