Leicester begins banning To Let boards outside student properties

Leicester is the latest city to go live with a scheme that requires letting agents to apply for planning permission to erect boards in areas heavily dominated by students. The council yesterday revealed that it is to start implementing new powers granted to it by the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government (DHCLG) to ban To Let boards in half a dozen areas in and around the University of Leicester and De Montford University. Under the Regulation 7 Direction order landlords or agents must now apply for planning consent to put up signs advertising a property and, if they don’t, will be fined up to £2,500. The areas affected are the Windermere, Hazel, Clarendon Park (pictured, above), Greenhill, West End, Ashleigh Road and West End conservation parts of the city. The ban follows a decade-long attempt to control boards in these areas through a voluntary code of practice but, the council says, only a ‘handful’ of landlords and agents have complied with this. To let boards The council was moved to apply for a Regulation 7 Direction order after locals in these areas complained of an almost constant flurry of boards outside properties. “They are intrusive and often misleading,…