Government consults on Leicester To Let board ban in student areas

The government is consulting the citizens of Leicester on whether to enable their local authority to gain formal control of To Let boards in four key student roads surrounding its two universities. This will, in effect, introduce a To Let board ban in these areas. Earlier this year the council applied to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to introduce formal controls for To Let boards and, after the consultation is over, a decision will be made. The bid by Leicester City Council under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations comes after a voluntary code of conduct introduced three years ago failed to control the large number of boards visible in these areas “for large parts of the year – almost permanently”, the council says. The voluntary code followed local concerns about the number of boards used by agents in the city’s highly competitive central rental market, which is dominated by Leicester’s 40,000 students. The city ran a consultation last year which received 238 replies, 88 from local landlords opposing the measure, although 96 people requested an outright band. A quick stroll down one of the main student roads in the city, Clarendon Street, reveals 21…