Our public spaces and high streets should celebrate local identity and culture, and centre the local economy.

The presence of corporate advertising such as on billboards and bus stop ads undermines this. These ads commercialise public space, and contribute to making all our towns and cities look the same. This recent example of an ad projection approved opposite Bath Abbey highlights the ways in which advertising robs us of our heritage.

• Billboard ads all too often promote products that are harmful to us, like junk food, gambling, alcohol and high carbon products.
• Brightly lit digital ad screens are a disaster for insects and bats, driving biodiversity loss in the UK.
• Making matters worse, research from Adfree Cities has found that outdoor advertising is disproportionately prevalent in more deprived areas, as measured by income and air pollution.

This is happening because of huge gaps in outdated UK planning legislation where local councils and residents have very little power to stop new adverts appearing on their streets or to take down those that already exist.

We need you to write to your MP asking them to pressure Angela Rayner, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to make the changes we desperately need to address this inequality.