Ban commercial banners around the city is the call from the chairman of a small local charity which was forced to remove one supporting a linked local theatre production.

St Albans Signal Box, which is run by volunteers, was told to remove a banner advertising The Railway Children, the Company of Ten’s Christmas show, because they did not have planning consent.

But on a short journey around the city, signal trust trust chairman Tony Furse spotted numerous banners including two on the fence of Oaklands College – one of which was advertising dog grooming.

There were also three banners at Morrison’s advertising Christmas trees, one in Victoria Street from a hairdressers and one on St Albans Old Town Hall advertising a book fair.

That was without all the council banners around the city plugging the Christmas market and the Alban Arena pantomime.

Tony said: “Funny isn’t it that all the banners I have mentioned are from commercial companies, colleges and councils but the only people who have had to take theirs down was a small impecunious charity offering a free Railway Museum to the children of St Albans.”

He called on commercial companies to remove the “offending and illegal banners that litter our city” and make it a Happy New Year for the council’s enforcement team.

Simon Rowberry, the district council’s interim planning chief, said: “St Albans is an attractive place in which to live and work and the planning enforcement team tries to keep it clear of unauthorised advertising banners where it can.”