IF BLACKBURN with Darwen Council has already policed the stupid and discriminatory ban on shopkeepers' A-board signs and pavement displays with far more zeal than other local authorities, what, then, is to be made of it adding sheer bloody-mindedness to its policy?

For that, surely, is what it has now done in tightening up the rules so that council officers are allowed absolutely no discretion over traders' boards and shop-front shows.

From now on, in Blackburn and Darwen, they are absolutely outlawed. Full stop. No argument.

All this, of course, flies full in the face of common sense, even-handedness, public opinion - and the barrage of criticism the council has attracted for its heavy-handedness already.

So why is it suddenly ditching the old county council guidelines that allowed officials to turn a blind eye when A-boards or shop wares on the pavement proved harmless and, as a self-run unitary authority, making rules that allow them no leeway at all? Perhaps, they will explain.

For, unable to think of a good reason for this step ourselves, it begins to look to us that spite now begins to augment the over-the-top approach displayed so far.

That logic has never applied in this whole business goes, of course, without saying - when councils, protesting that they are seeking protect the blind and disabled from obstructions, are themselves responsible for creating more pavement obstacles than anyone else. Yet do we not see the absurdity cranked up further still in the comments last night of the town hall A-board boss, Councillor Andy Kay? For he says the council does not "go in using the big stick," but, as far as he is concerned, "discretion will not come into this."

It may be that, having been at variance with common sense and reasonableness for so long already, spouting that sort of contradiction comes naturally to him.

But if he and his fellow junta officials will not heed reason or see the need to protect small business and shop jobs in Blackburn and Darwen, then perhaps they will listen to a higher authority - the government.

Do they not recall that as long ago as last November that councils were warned - by planning minister Nick Raynsford in direct response to the heavy-handedness being displayed by those in Lancashire - that their powers to remove alleged pavement obstructions should be used on a case-by-case basis and not indiscriminately?

Will "No Discretion" Coun Kay and company kindly chew on that before they blunder on?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.