Saturday 12 January 2008

Estate Agent boards as a blight?

In some parts of Camden (mainly conservation areas) estate agent boards have been banned.

The view is held that they are a blight - they run the area down, it let's people know that lots of people want to move out, that properties are not selling - it's a host of mixed messages, largely negative ones.

I think estate agents are increasingly high street blights in their own right. Further, I am increasingly of the view that their boards can go - that in an area of mansion blocks, flats and multi-occ houses, they are unecessary, excessive and unsightly.

This picture is in fact taken in Brondesbury, in Brent, and I'm inclined to start the conversations with local councillors to see what can be done for the better. It's very true that images such as this are not helpful, do nothing to entice people to an area and nothing to actually sell houses or flats.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I ran a campaign once where we called up the estate agents advertising outside a particular block of flats (and had been for weeks) and asked about the flat, to be told by all the companies that it "had just gone". Two weeks later when the signs were still there I emailed the agents to say that the signs were still up and that their contractors must have forgotten to remove the signs and I was sure they wanted to take them down. A day after sending each email, the appropriate sign came down (although they never replied to the emails). Agents can be fined quite heavily, so it might be worth asking Trading Standards to investigate.

Anonymous said...

This is a subject that really gets up my nose. I hate those damn boards. They are unsightly and obviously the shifty characters that whizz around putting them up everywhere must get paid per sighn the erect. They really should be banned.
I mean they even put them on bridges say this area is covered by so and so estate agents.
If you can get them banned, you have my vote!Des.

Anonymous said...

a vote a vote - i'm not actually a vote chaser, but this is an issue i will follow through on
watch this space