EPPING FOREST: BNP accused of hypocrisy over fly-posting (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

EPPING FOREST: BNP accused of hypocrisy over fly-posting

10:10am Monday 8th June 2009 in Epping Forest News By Edmund Tobin

BNP activists have been accused of irresponsible littering and hypocrisy after scores of their party’s election banners were fly-posted across two towns.

Epping Forest District’s BNP councillors have been among the loudest in their demands to clamp down on fly-tipping and graffiti and recently enthusiastically supported the council’s Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act.

But overnight on election day last week scores of their posters appeared on lampposts and bus-stops across Loughton and Waltham Abbey.

Lesley Lewis, 47, of Honey Lane, Waltham Abbey, said: “I first saw them when I opened the bedroom curtains and there was one staring straight into our windows.

“They were pinned up all over Honey Lane. Then when I went into town they were on every set of lampposts and bus-stop you could possibly imagine.”

Mrs Lewis contacted the district council who sent a lorry to remove the posters.

She said: “Their election leaflet said ‘we’re not in it for the money’ but they’re causing public money to be used to clear this up. Who did they think was going to clear it up?”

Posters also appeared all over Loughton to the annoyance of local residents.

Loughton mayor Ken Angold-Stephens said: “They have incurred quite a lot of costs in removing them. They were up so high they had to use a ladder to remove them. It’s an illegal act and irresponsible.

“I’m a bit concerned they did break the law against fly-posting, and it’s a law which they proport to strongly support. They’ve been very strong in trying to clampdown on litter, graffiti and fly-posting.”

Epping Forest’s BNP group leader Pat Richardson said the fly-posting had nothing to do with party members.

She said: “They weren’t official and where they came from no-one knows. Then again we sometimes get [pro-BNP] graffiti and stuff done by non-members of the party.

“Some were on places they shouldn’t have been. It’s either people trying to cause trouble or people with a misguided sense of enthusiasm. We don’t need it really.”