A publicity stunt by Waitrose has been ruined after an overzealous local council surrounded it with safety barriers.

       The shopping giant installed a slanted billboard on the side of a building in Clapham, south London that said: “Well, this is good. New lower prices on hundreds of your favourites.”

       It was reported by a concerned member of the public who thought it was going to fall down, which led to action from Wandsworth Council.

       The council told the Telegraph it did not want “to take any chances” and put up a line of orange barriers and traffic cones to “be on the safe side” over worries for “public safety”.

       Waitrose responded on social media, thanking the council for its “swift action” but saying that “while (their) prices are falling rapidly, (their) billboard certainly isn’t”.

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       The safety measures were removed once the council caught wind of the “unusual” advertisement stunt.

       A spokesman for the council said: “We were alerted to this unusual advert by a concerned member of the public and while we could see it might be deliberately set up to look that way, we thought better not take any chances with public safety so put up some barriers to be on the safe side.

       “Once we’d spoken to Waitrose and established it was designed to look this way we removed the barriers straight away.”

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       A Waitrose spokesman also said: “This billboard was part of a creative marketing campaign to communicate hundreds of falling prices.

       “Though many prices have come down – we are very happy to reassure residents of Clapham that our billboard certainly hasn’t.”

       The 3D billboard is part of a new advertisement campaign by the supermarket to promote price cuts across hundreds of its products.