A BAN on advertising A-boards looks set to be extended to all the district’s urban centres after a heated two-hour debate.

Disability groups and traders made passionate arguments for and against the boards when a health scrutiny committee met at City Hall last night.

The ban has been trialled in four areas of the district this year - Ilkley, Saltaire, central Bradford and Leeds Road - prompting two petitions from traders calling for it to be halted part-way through and one petition from a disability group in its support.

Among the disability campaigners to speak was Paul Robinson, of the Holme Wood VIP (Visually Impaired People) Group, who urged the health and social care overview and scrutiny committee to recommend a full ban across the district.

He said: “The committee has an opportunity today to make Bradford a better place. You are not pioneers. You are not the first council in Britain to be doing this. You are following and you are behind.

“If your business requires free advertising, your business is in trouble.”

Emmerson Walgrove, chairman of the Bradford District Disabled People’s Forum, said: “A public highway is the Queen’s highway and you should travel around without hindrance.”

Helen Rhodes, of the Ilkley Business Forum said she and other traders sympathised with the difficulties disabled people must face when navigating town and city centres.

She said while this must be very hard, it was also hard to run a small business, especially those off the main high streets.

She said: “It doesn’t matter how pretty a shop frontage is, if you are tucked away down a side-street.”

Ros Seton, who spoke on behalf of traders in Saltaire, listed a number of traders whose takings had plummeted since it took effect. She said as it was a World Heritage Site, the advertising options open to traders were very limited.

Committee member Councillor Aneela Ahmed (Lab, City) said there were ways for businesses to advertise online.

She said: “Why can’t you use social media to advertise their businesses, rather than having A-boards on the streets?”

Councillor Mike Gibbons (Con, Ilkley) said if the ban only covered urban centres, some businesses would feel this was unfair.

But officers said the Council only had a limited budget for enforcing the ban, which meant resources had to be concentrated.

The meeting heard only one business had responded to requests by the Council to open its books, in confidence, to show how takings had been affected, but only one had done so.

Councillor Cath Bacon (Lab, Keighley West) said in her opinion this had weakened the traders' argument.

But traders said some had been waiting to be formally consulted - a process which is yet to take place - while others had not trusted the Council with their financial information.

The committee recommended that a permanent ban be started in all urban centres of the district. While these have not yet been defined, they are likely to also include places like Keighley, Bingley and Shipley.

The committee also asked for the introduction of alternative advertising spaces to be explored on fingerposts and planters.

But the final decision will have to be rubber-stamped by the decision-making Executive before the ban can be introduced.