Bridgnorth town council could be paid an extra £3k to maintain roundabouts with adverts on

Shropshire Council has applied to display four sponsorship signs on the Bandon Roundabout at the junction of A442 Cann Hall Road, Mill Street and B4363 Wolverhampton Road. It is one of a number of islands they want to place advertising on in a bid to bring in up to £400,000 income per year.

As well as the Bandon roundabout, Bridgnorth Town Council currently looks after the maintenance of three other islands in the area, although Shropshire Council owns them.

They are currently paid £16,747.50 for verge maintenance by the county but if the roundabouts are used for new advertising they would receive an extra £3,287 to provide 'enhanced' maintenance.

A meeting of the town council on Tuesday heard they already receive income from advertising of just over £7,000, though the contract for that has expired. If they lost the income of new advertising it would mean a deficit of £3,881.

Members were asked to vote on whether to continue with the present agreement but lose the present advertising revenue, to carry out the enhanced maintenance but also lose any advertising money or to hand back the roundabouts to the county with no responsibility for any future maintenance.

Councillors expressed concern about the potential loss of revenue and the possibility of national advertisers being used rather than - as now - companies who operate in the Bridgnorth area.

Deputy mayor Councillor Rachel Connolly also said it was important to maintain the image of the town.

She said: "I am sure that Bridgnorth residents will be very unhappy if our local businesses were priced out of the adverts in favour of national chains so we need to clarify our position on that.

"We are a tourist town and these roundabouts are the gateways to our historic town and we should protect them."

East councillor Nicky Cooper said: "Seven thousand pounds worth of advertising over the last ten years is a lot of income and it is also potentially a lot of money to lose if we hand the management of the advertising over to Shropshire Council, who would keep the money themselves."

Members of the council decided to write to Shropshire Council to ask them if they could defer a decision on the enhanced maintenance of the islands for a year whilst more consideration on the matter was carried out.