The Manchester Shutter Sticker War: A Hidden Turf Battle

Next time you're walking down a high street in Manchester — or Salford, or Stockport, or Bolton, or pretty much anywhere in Greater Manchester — have a look at the roller shutters on the shops.

Not at the shutters themselves. At the stickers.

You'll see them on nearly every one. Little call-out stickers. Phone numbers. Company names. "For repairs call..." plastered onto shutters that company didn't fit, didn't supply, and has absolutely no connection to.

Now look closer. Peel back the corner of one and you'll find another sticker underneath. And another one under that. Layer upon layer, like some sort of aggressive industrial lasagne.

Welcome to the Manchester shutter sticker war. It's been going on for years, and once you know about it, you'll spot it on every street in every town across Greater Manchester.

Here's the playbook. It's not exactly subtle.

A van pulls up outside a row of shops, usually at night or early morning when nobody's around. The driver hops out with a pocket full of stickers — their company name and phone number — and starts slapping them onto every roller shutter in sight.

It doesn't matter who fitted the shutter. It doesn't matter who the shop owner uses for servicing. It doesn't matter if there's already a sticker on there from the actual company who installed it. On it goes. Right over the top.

The idea is simple: when the shutter breaks down and the shop owner is stood outside at 6am in a panic, they'll call the number on the sticker without thinking twice. Doesn't matter that it's not the company who fitted it. Doesn't matter that the sticker was put there without anyone's permission. The phone rings, and that's a job.

At its peak — and we're talking not that long ago — hundreds of stickers would go down across Manchester in a single week. Hundreds. Different companies running the same routes, sometimes on the same night, sticking over each other's stickers that were stuck over their stickers that were stuck over someone else's. You'd peel back the layers on some shutters and find a proper archaeological dig of phone numbers going back years.

Some companies send lads out on regular routes. Weekly sticker runs. Like a paper round, except instead of the Manchester Evening News, it's adhesive advertising nobody asked for. Rival firms would literally follow each other up and down the same roads — one van stickering, the next van coming along twenty minutes later and stickering right over the top. Then the first lot would come back the following night and do it all over again. An arms race fought entirely in vinyl.

The build-up on some shutters is genuinely impressive. We've seen stickers layered so thick you could practically read the history of the Manchester shutter trade by peeling them off one by one. It'd be funny if it wasn't someone else's property getting caked in adhesive.

It's a proper turf war. And it's been the worst-kept secret in the Manchester shutter trade for decades.

Short answer: absolutely not.

Long answer: it breaks about five different laws at the same time.

Flyposting — Sticking adverts on someone's property without permission is flyposting, and it's a criminal offence under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The fine? Up to £2,500 per sticker, plus £250 a day if you don't remove them. Per sticker. Think about that next time you see a van-load of them going out on a Friday night.

Criminal Damage — If a sticker damages the paint or coating on a shutter, or leaves residue when removed, that's criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1971. Up to three months in prison or a £2,500 fine for damage under £5,000.

The "It Wasn't Me" Defence Doesn't Work — Here's the clever bit. The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 specifically removed the defence of "I didn't put it there." If your company name is on the sticker, you're liable. Full stop. Doesn't matter if you claim it was a rogue employee or a subcontractor or the wind. Your name, your problem.

Trespass — Walking onto someone's property to stick an advert on their shutter is trespass. It's a civil matter rather than criminal, but the property owner can sue for damages and get a court order to stop it happening again.

Anti-Social Behaviour — Councils can treat persistent stickering as anti-social behaviour. First a warning, then a Community Protection Notice, then prosecution. The fines are unlimited for companies.

This isn't just theoretical. Companies have been dragged through the courts for exactly this kind of thing.

In 2024, a driveway company in South Gloucestershire was fined £4,563 after being caught flyposting 113 advertising boards across the area. The magistrate said they'd have fined for each individual board if they could.

Another company copped a £33,284 bill — nearly thirty-three thousand pounds — for flyposting combined with waste and highway offences. Payable within 14 days.

That's not pocket change. That's a van, a year's worth of materials, and a very uncomfortable conversation with the accountant.

Now imagine applying those fines per-sticker to the hundreds that go out across Manchester every week. The potential liability is staggering. But it keeps happening because most councils don't have the resources to chase every sticker on every shutter on every street. The companies know this, and they bank on it.

Bad enough sticking your sticker on someone's property without asking. But sticking it over the top of another company's sticker? That takes it to another level.

When you cover up a competitor's sticker, you're potentially committing additional offences:

Unlawful interference with business — deliberately destroying a competitor's advertising so customers call you instead. The competitor can sue.

Criminal damage to the competitor's property — the sticker itself belongs to someone. Covering or destroying it is damage to their property.

Unfair commercial practices — Trading Standards can get involved if there's a pattern of deliberately targeting rival companies' advertising.

It's the shutter trade equivalent of painting over someone else's shop sign. Except it happens every single night across Greater Manchester and nobody talks about it.

Well. Until now.

If you've found a sticker on your roller shutter that you didn't ask for — and let's be honest, you probably have — here's what you can do:

Take a photo. Get the company name, phone number, and the location on your property. Date it.

Report it to your local council as flyposting. Every council has a reporting route for this. It only takes a few minutes and it builds a case against repeat offenders.

Report it to Trading Standards on 0808 223 1133. Especially useful if the same company keeps doing it.

Write to the company and tell them to stop. Keep a copy. If they come back after being told not to, it strengthens any future case.

If it's damaged your shutter — scratched the paint, left residue, or you can't remove it cleanly — report it to the police as criminal damage. Get a crime reference number.

Check your CCTV or doorbell camera. If you've caught them in the act, that's solid evidence.

Most people just peel the sticker off and get on with their day. Fair enough. But if enough people report it, councils do act. And the fines are proper.

We'll be straight with you: we've never done the sticker thing and we never will.

It's not because we're scared of the fines — although thirty-three grand would definitely sting. It's because it's a grubby way to get work. Sticking your name on someone's property without asking, covering up the company who actually did the job, hoping someone calls you in a panic at 6am — that's not how we want to get customers.

We've been fitting shutters across Manchester for over 30 years. We get work because we do a good job, charge a fair price, and people tell their mates. That's it. No sticker runs, no cold calls, no salespeople in shiny shoes. Just proper tradesmen who'd rather be fitting shutters than creeping around industrial estates at midnight with a roll of stickers and a guilty conscience.

If you want a company that gets its work on merit rather than adhesive, give us a ring. We'll come out, measure up, give you a straight price, and get on with it.

And we promise not to stick anything on your shutter that you didn't ask for.