Council swaps ad space for bikes, toilets

Dublin City Council is to allow one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies to erect 120 permanent advertising panels across the city in exchange for 500 bicycles and four public toilets.

The bicycles are to be available for the public to rent, for a fee yet to be decided.

A multimillion euro contract signed with advertisers JC Decaux will see advertisement panels on O'Connell Street within six months. The council will receive no money from the advertising but in addition to the bicycles and toilets will get a number of signposts, freestanding maps and "heritage trail" posts.

Many of the advertising panels would be seven square metres (75sq ft) in size, but the majority would be two square metres. The smaller ones would be approximately the size of a bus shelter advertisement. Both structures would be freestanding, double-sided and illuminated.

The details of the contract have not been disclosed but it is estimated that the advertising space sold on the panels would be worth at least €1 million every year to JC Decaux.

Councillors reacted angrily to the scheme yesterday saying the city management was "selling the public footpath" and "almost prostituting itself" to the company.

The company has agreed to provide and maintain 500 "city bikes" at 25 locations around the city. People renting the bicycles would be able to collect them from and return them to any station. Users would have to register their details with the council and provide credit card details to prevent theft.

JC Decaux has run a similar scheme in Lyon in France.

The company plans to erect six of the two square metre panels on O'Connell Street and one on Grafton Street. The seven square metre panels will be located in areas such as Parnell Street, Capel Street and Church Street.

JC Decaux has applied to the council for planning permission for the sites for the 120 agreed structures. The company will pull out of the scheme if it does not get planning permission for 75 per cent of the panels. If it gets permission for less than 100 per cent of the panels, the number of "public realm enhancements" will be correspondingly reduced.

"We are selling the public footpath for 500 bikes and four public conveniences . . . Dublin City Council has been short-changed," Labour Cllr Emer Costello said at a meeting on the issue yesterday.

Deputy Lord Mayor Aodhán Ó Riordáin (Labour) said the council should be in a position to provide bicycles itself "instead of almost prostituting ourselves to private enterprise".

The profits earned by JC Decaux would be "gigantic", said Fine Gael's Paschal Donohoe.

However, Ciarán McNamara, an executive manager in the council's planning department, said the council was "doing extremely well" out of the contract. JC Decaux had agreed to remove a "sizable number" of its large advertising hoardings from the city as part of the deal, he said.