Anti Illegal Buntings Campaign

Members for the Neighbourhood Watch SS25A organised an Anti illegal Buntings Campaign last Sunday. I am proud to be part of the team. The Campaign was held to take down excessive hanging and displaying of buntings on the trees, lamp posts and buildings. Buntings and posters advertising plumbing and roof leaking repair services, loan facilities, properties information, offer for educational opportunities and telecommunication offers all over the place has become a common phenomena in Petaling Jaya. Public area with public notice boards, phone booths, substation and bus stops are draughted by the advertisements, at time blocking the information. This is definitely a nuisance to the neighbourhood and city scape.

The Authorities have to get rid of this nonsense. In order to do that, the authorities have to act fast, precise and efficiently or else it is no ending story as it is becoming easier and cheaper to hang and stick the advertising material onto public structure. Perhaps the approach for broken window policy shall be applied. The Authorities have to restore or to repair or to reinstall whatever stickied or hanged back to the original state immediately after any irresponsible act or else it will portrait wrong impression to others that such thing is ok to do or no act is to be taken. Once a damaged structure is repaired faster than the anticipated time, presumably people might not want to repeat the same act again.

Having said this, the hands of the authorities are tight in which close monitoring and speedy action is almost impossible. With regard to this, the participation of the stakeholders is crucial. Residents group to keep monitoring and clean up any unwanted buntings and posters as soon as possible. As local residents for their neighbourhood, they are in better position to watch over unwanted activities. By incorporating residents, sense of ownership of having a clean and tidy living environment can be inculcated.

Perhaps the Authorities should organise a public structure adoption scheme. Public structure such as the lamp posts, telephone posts, substation, railing, telephone booth etc can be adopted by the residents. Residents will be rewarded for keeping their adopted facilities in good health of condition. I believe, this is do-able and the impact will be much better than the authorities fighting the battle alone and with tight hands.