Dacorum council in Hertfordshire has prosecuted an estate agency for what it calls the “illegal display” of a For Sale board on a telegraph pole.
Sterling estate agents, which has offices in Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Kings Langley and Tring), pleaded guilty at St Albans magistrates' court to the placing of an unlawful board on a telegraph pole at Common Lane in Kings Langley.
The council brought the case because the board was not displayed on land or property for sale and it was not, therefore, apparent to which property the board related.
The agency was fined £800 and now has to pay the council’s £780 costs and a victim surcharge of £80.
The council’s planning officers started legal proceedings against Sterling in November after - in the authority’s words - “several warnings to the company about placement of its boards.”
A spokesman for the council says unlawfully-sited boards are “misleading, unsightly and can be visually distracting to motorists” and claims the authority “will not allow companies or individuals to colonise the borough’s public spaces for private gain.”
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£80 to give to a telegraph pole. How does it intend spending it?
Probably on some new wires!
Perhaps it was a Polish bloke who works for the Telegraph.
Oh dear, Richard. Don't give up the day job, will you?
Seems a bit draconian. Where was the council's decorum?
I'll get my coat!
It was "not ..apparent to which property the board related".
That goes on all the time , in so many places, just drive around Salisbury for instance, I see some of the lower value chain Agents doing this.
Do you think home owners are ever paid to host a board on a property not actually for sale?
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