Councils are warning agents to abide by the rules following complaints from residents and businesses about the positions of For Sale and To Let boards.
In a joint letter issued by Warwick district and Warwickshire county councils, agents operating in the area have been warned against breaching The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007.
Alleged problems include placing boards on highways, public land, private property or street furniture and ensuring that signs are only positioned directly at the home being marketed.
Those contravening these rules could be issued with fines of up to £2,500 per board.
A spokesperson for Warwick District Council comments: “WDC is committed at all times to maintaining the highest level of trust and impartiality around all matters concerning planning and therefore act swiftly to uphold these standards on behalf of all our residents.
"I therefore applaud the action being taken by both the District and County Councils to try to curb the blight of unauthorised estate agent boards which are often eyesores and add unnecessary clutter to our streets and residential areas.
“At this stage we wish to work in partnership with local agencies, to prevent a situation where we need to prohibit signage in locations such as conservation areas and look forward to our mutual cooperation having a positive impact across the district.”
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Locally in rural Somerset there is a growing trend of boards on main road junctions pointing to property for sale down B roads. They are certainly not within the curtilage of the property, which BTW is a planning requirement. The biggest problem here is that the boards refer to a property that is literally miles away.
Now change the location to a more urban location (let’s for fun say Greater London) this translates into every major road junction having hundreds of boards pointing to properties possibly in a different borough.
At £400 fines per day for agent and seller, LA’s may see this as a means of replenishing dwindling social care budgets.
Most sensible local authorities send a letter from their enforcement officer politely requesting that boards be removed. Fines are only imposed when agents blatantly ignore these requests. In most cases, it's not a fine; the local authority imposes a charge for the cost of removal and storage of the board. This article is typical scaremongering and is not factually correct.
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