A FIVE-FIGURE settlement has been agreed with Hackney council over a huge hoarding advertising the iPad. It was erected on the Old Street facade of the 1908 ex-Shoreditch magistrates’ court.

The council told Loving Dalston at the time, last September 2012, that no permission to display the ad on a listed building had been sought.

One of the leading objectors to the Apple sign was Councillor Vincent Stops, of Hackney’s planning sub-committee, who claimed that air bricks had been knocked out of the building. He speculated that more damage had been done.

This week a council source told Loving Dalston that action against other illicit hoardings was under way and that some might be settled out of court. He/she added that the council could in some cases potentially invoke the criminal legislation.

Hackney residents and lovers of historic buildings will rejoice at the news — but Apple can see the episode as a good result. The settlement will have cost less than the hoarding, and that will have been seen by thousands of Shoreditch creatives, an iPad target market, for weeks before agreement was reached to take it down.

Hamish Scott 130613

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