04/06/2026
Some of you will remember we had some problems with having our A-board on the promenade in Morecambe recently (see my post from a few weeks ago). Well, it looks like the “Sign-gate” saga continues...
In order to help improve awareness and visibility, which is important for our success and growth as a business, I got a large banner produced to display in a few places (I was planning to move it every 10 days or so). I paid £115 to have one made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, because this fits our sustainability ethos.
I proudly displayed this on a prominent roadside location in Lancaster (at the roundabout near the hospital), where I’ve seen many other banners for events, businesses, and even birthday celebrations. Look how proud I am in the first photo seeing Grow Kitchen on a big banner!
Last Thursday morning I was frustrated and disappointed to see that this had been removed!
From the replies to the article below (please take a look) many people suggest it's like to be the county council who removed it, out of safety concerns of signs on the roadside.
In theory, this might seem partly understandable. But in reality, highways agencies and county/town councils don’t seem to have “safety concerns” about the hundreds of large bus-stop advertising boards around, brightly drawing our attention to the factory-produced ultra-processed foods that they are invariably advertising.
And I’m not aware of County Councils, local councils, highways agencies or other organisations tearing down the massive advertising billboards for gambling sites, fast foods, etc which appear along busy roads.
Running a small hospitality business is hard enough, what with HMRC’s predatory approach to taxation, stupidly-high energy and fuel prices (while fossil fuel companies profiteer from wars/instability) and supermarket chains price gouging under the guise of “supply problems”.
But having our small attempts to build awareness or visibility of our businesses repeatedly thwarted like this just adds insult to injury.
I see people online being negative about the council, which I will avoid here because I know they’ve got a lot of areas to cover, probably with continued budget cuts and more pressure on services. In fact, I certainly wouldn't want the challenging job or running some of the council services in the current climate.
And of course it could have been taken down by anyone. Maybe someone who hates the colour green? Anyway, I'll try and track down my lovely little banner and see if I can find a safe place to display it.
I usually try to be a positive person (online at least 😊), but today I am allowing myself a big grumpy moan!
One day I’ll find a way of getting improved visibility out and about round Lancaster and Morecambe. I think it just might not be using signs/banners/boards!
Onwards and upward...
Thank you to Lancaster Guardian for covering the story. :-)
Morecambe cafe owner shares mystery over missing banner at Lancaster roundabout 👇
