BIG HOARDINGS: NEW CONTROVERSY

A firm stance has been taken by the city councillor Marta Locatelli about the big hoardings in St Mark’s Square. According to the councillor, also following the ‘Ornaghi’ guidelines reported in a previous news item, the Venice City Council violates a national law and several council regulations regarding big hoardings in protected places. In a detailed speech printed entirely today in the daily ‘La Nuova Venezia’, Councillor Locatelli states that since 2006 ‘the authorising fee has never paid’ for the big hoardings in St Mark’s Square and ‘the tendering procedure has never been respected, but, above all, they are not related to any restoration works, because since 2006 no work at all has been carried out behind the scaffolding’. Consequently, the councillor says that ‘the authorisation granted for the big hoardings in St Mark’s Square must immediately be revoked, but above all to safeguard the city and its people immediate payment of the fee from 2006 to the present must by demanded, along with the penalties provided for by regulation and the surcharges for the old city centre and the periods of greatest tourist flows’. A very tough stance that reopens the never silenced controversies in the city about big advertising hoardings in historic and symbolic places like St Mark’s Square.