Letting boards regulation 7 direction
Newcastle City Council has fought back against the proliferation of ‘To Let’ boards that it says are ‘intrusive’ and ‘spoil popular areas’. From January 2015, landlords and lettings agents will need to apply for advertisement consent to install lettings boards. Court action and fines of up to £2,500 will then apply to boards that are not removed or do not have advertisement consent.
The move comes following a successful application to the Government for a regulation 7 direction which will apply in; Gosforth, Heaton, High West Jesmond, Jesmond, Sandyford, Shieldfield, South Gosforth and Spital Tongues.
Normally, letting boards are considered to have deemed consent under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations. However, a regulation 7 direction removes this deemed consent for a specified area.
Cabinet member for Investment and Development, Cllr Ged Bell said: “The council has tried for a number of years to reduce the amount of lettings boards in certain areas of the city, even introducing a voluntary code for landlords.
“Residents tell us that too many boards spoil areas and negatively affect house prices, particularly in areas like Jesmond and Sandyford that often contain student households.
“We are very pleased the Planning Inspector agrees with us that we need more powers to take firmer action against landlords and letting agents who pepper our streets with these intrusive ‘to let’ boards.
“This Regulation 7 direction gives us the power to take enforcement action against a significant minority and address an issue which is a persistent concern for residents in some of our most densely populated neighbourhoods.
“We realise this is a big change for some local businesses, so we are giving them a three month window to get used to the new direction and remove any boards.”
Newcastle is the first big English city to successfully apply for a Regulation 7 direction requiring consent for lettings boards (although directions are in place in cities such as Nottingham to control the design of boards). It remains to be seen whether other cities will follow.
[edit] Find out more
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- Advertisement consent.
- Article 4 direction.
- Deemed consent.
- Express consent.
- Permitted development.
- Planning permission.
[edit] External references.
Featured articles and news
Interview with Structural Timber Association
We interviewed CEO Andrew Carpenter about the rising popularity of timber, Grenfell, the future of 'plyscrapers', and more.
High density floating track slab
Can you pump heavyweight concrete through 500 m of 125 mm pipeline? Andrew Turner discusses the challenges at Crossrail.
Non-domestic New Construction 2018 manual
DRAFT technical manual for BREEAM UK Non-domestic New Construction 2018 manual open to comments.
What is a certificate of non completion? Find out with this introductory article.
Read about the launch event for our major new report about the worrying and widening construction knowledge gap.
The construction knowledge gap
We've analysed 6 million pieces of data to reveal that the knowledge framework underpinning the construction industry is no longer fit for purpose.
An introduction to retrofitting.
Retrofitting traditional buildings depends on understanding how they differ from modern construction.
The theme for BSRIA's 2017 Briefing is 'Solutions to Tomorrow’s Challenges in Today’s Buildings'.
Dealing more than 1,700 consultations was just one of last year’s tasks for the Gardens Trust.
Read about the history behind one of California's most iconic buildings, the Griffith Observatory.
ICE examine just how close we are to providing subsidy-free low carbon electricity.
Have a look at MAD Architects' design proposal for renovating Montparnasse Tower into a concave mirror.