Date Published 06 March 2023
Part of marketing as an estate agent is to show boards up on properties which are either in the current rental or for sale market. One rule of this is once the property has reached the date of completion for the sale or signing of a new tenancy that the board must be removed within 14 days. However in one area of Reading their has been a consistent ‘forest' of boards not being taken down or left up over a substantial time.
The area which has been targeted is the Redlands area on the East side of Reading. These roads include Erleigh Road, Addington Road, Blenheim Road, Cardigan Road and more where councilors are being called upon to actively reduce the signage on the roads. The main consequence is that the Redlands area is a student area and there is a high turnover of tenancies, this causes a security issue for the Landlords and Tenants.
After a meeting between councilors at Reading Borough Council a plan was suggested to create a voluntary agreement between the council and estate agents which would be similar to one made back in 2014. This was replied to by councilor David McElroy (Green, Redlands) saying that estate agents permission to advertise ‘to let' signs could be revoked by applying to the government for a ‘Regulation 7 Direction' which would remove discretionary consent for such advertising.
Another councilor Will Cross (Labour, Redlands) has further tried to implement this by conducting an audit identifying 70 signs in the student area and spreading the message through social media.
In conclusion to this we at Adams Estates have worked with and responded to Will Cross to help the concern within the student area. All of our student property boards have been taken down in response, so that we can help the community further to tackle this issue.
