An anonymous campaign has been resuscitated on Twitter with the professed aim of shaming local estate agents who illegally display boards against UK planning laws.
UK Board Watch 2015 appears to be a resuscitated version of a campaign which started on social media back in July 2012. It is based in Cheltenham and sprang back to life in mid-January after occasional tweets last year.
In recent weeks it has tweeted photographs of boards which it implicitly alleges are erected illegally. Some of the photographs are accompanied by the Twitter hashtag #illegalboards.
The profile of the tweeter - who rather mysteriously uses the handle @3flyingducks - gives little away but says to followers that it is campaigning against illegal boards and if you see one, let us know.
Last spring a spate of local authorities became exercised over estate and letting agency boards. Some introduced directions under regulation 7 of the Advertisement Regulations which would remove the right to display agents' boards in designated areas of a town.
Some agents, too, came out against them, with Mishon Mackay in Hove and Hunters in the London suburb of West Hampstead suggesting they would voluntarily restrict their use.
In locations as far apart as London and Cornwall boards have been allegedly attacked by opponents - presumed not to be rival agents.
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Comments
Interesting that this has had to go to Social Media for attention.
Illegal posting of boards can be dealt with by reporting the offending company to the local council who have all the powers they need under Town and Country Planning Act to stop them.
Estate agents sign boards are a legitimate and indeed an effective means of marketing a property and provided that they are erected and displayed within the restrictions of the Town and Planning act then they do not represent for most people a problem and as such are not fly posting as one contributor suggested. The problem arises from a minority of agents who ignore the rules and it is up to the local authority to enforce them and deal effectively with the offenders. But if we are proposing further restrictions lets also have the same discussion about all forms of posters and bill boards, political parties sign boards which spring up in gardens and at the roadside, perhaps there also ought to be a debate about the unnecessary proliferation of street signs an traffic signals too!
The only way to effectively reduce this is to make it totally illegal unless Planning Consent is obtained for each specific property or site. This should also apply to architects, builders and any other signs that advertise a particular named business, including the government and councils.
I have run an estate agents office in South West London for the last 34 years and would happily stop putting up boards if all agents followed suit. I would like the council to outlaw them as they blight the area and given we live in an age of the internet what purpose do they serve other than advertise the estate agent. I cant remember the last time a buyer rang me from a board. Before the internet of course they were useful but in my mind they are dreadful things and once you have a cluster outside any building or row of properties it is no better than graffiti, scaring the street scene.
Why should estate agencies be allowed to do what is effectively fly-posting. On the property or not at all.