A TOWN centre cafe owner says her takings have dropped by 10 per cent since a controversial A-board ban was introduced.

The move is part of a town centre public spaces protection order, which also bans aggressive begging and other antisocial behaviour.

It has been pioneered by Colchester Council community safety boss Mike Lilley, who said it would open up the town centre to people with disabilities and partially sighted and blind people.

But Elaine Jiggins, who owns Caffe Sala, in Eld Lane, Colchester, has warned the move is already affecting her business.

She said: “First of all, bringing it in at this time of year is just incredibly unfair to businesses. This is the time of year so many businesses actually make their money and any advertising we can get is a massive plus.

“I’m looking week on week since the ban came into place and I can see we are about 10 per cent down since then.

“We actually took less at the end of November than we did at the beginning which - while that’s probably normal for any other month - you just don’t expect in November as people are starting to come out and shop for Christmas at the end of the month.

“I actually don’t think the council knew when it did this just how important A-boards are to businesses.

“A-boards are signs that you are open for business.

“We’ve had people come in saying: ‘Oh, I wasn’t sure if you were open.’”

Mrs Jiggins, who had two A-boards advertising the cafe, did admit the town needs to be more disabled access friendly but said the council should have sought to a compromise with businesses.

She added: “I know there are areas where it might have been a problem but I know a lot of businesses owners who think we’re being penalised for the actions of just a few people who went overboard.”

Community safety boss Mike Lilley has previously emphasised the council is not “anti business” and said the move was to open up the town centre to people who may have stayed away because of the clutter in some parts of the town centre.

He also admitted the policy may take some time to bed in and he would be willing to review it in the New Year.

Other businesses have voiced their concerns over the move, with some threatening to relocate from the town as a result.

But the policy has been praised by access groups who say the town centre had become too cluttered with hundreds of the boards.

'Business boss: there must be a compromise'

A BUSINESS boss has criticised the “draconian” A-board policy and has questioned why Colchester Council did not adopt existing guidelines set up by Essex County Council.

County Hall protocol is to allow each business one A-board.

The board must leave two metres of unobstructed space so people can walk past safely.

In exceptional circumstances, that space can be reduced to

1.8 metres while boards cannot be used without permission in conservation areas.

Iain Wicks, development manager at the Essex branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “Surely it would have been much more of a compromise to adopt the policy already in place over much of the county rather than a ban?

“What they have put in place, to many businesses, seems draconian.”

Colchester Council did consider adopting the policy in April but, during a meeting of the authority’s scrutiny panel, there was cross-party support for a complete ban.

Lucie Breadman, head of community services at Colchester Council, told the meeting officers had spoken to 24

businesses about the issue and “all said they would resist a ban”.

But she added: “Where bans have been put in place, there hasn’t been a huge impact on business.”