Ealing Council Accused of Blighting Streets with Yellow Notices
Councillor collects 40 out of date ones in just 90 minutes
The council is being accused of littering streets with out of date notices
October 12, 2023
A local Liberal Democrat councillor is questioning Ealing Council’s policy on planning notices after collecting a huge pile of out of date ones.
Cllr Andrew Steed, who represents Southfield ward recently spent an hour and a half, cycling around streets in the area. Despite visiting just half a dozen streets he managed to locate and cut down 40 out of date notices placed by the council on lampposts.
He said, “You used to get letters. Then they stopped the letters and notices appeared on lampposts. More recently these have been upgraded to dayglow yellow notices attached to lampposts with environmentally unfriendly plastic cables.”
The council uses these notices to fulfil its statutory responsibility to inform residents of planning applications that may affect them. It says that these are more effective and cheaper than the previous method of sending letters to properties likely to be impacted by a neighbour’s building plans.
In addition, the council places a notice in a newspaper but this is not generally distributed across the borough.
The lamppost notices only need to be displayed during the few weeks comments are invited on planning applications.
Cllr Steed also collected eight cable ties as part of his haul. He commented, “They are left to accumulate by the Labour-run Ealing Council. They look untidy. Old notices give a poor impression. If you put up notices without permission, the Council could fine you £80 for illegal flyposting.
“They are a particular bug bear of mine. I do appreciate that this may not be top of the list of public grievances. I also acknowledge that there is a need for the local authority to publicise planning applications, but why is it accepted that authorised littering of our streets takes place?”
The pile of notices collected by Councillor Steed
He says that the planning department keeps a record of when and where the notices are positioned so it should not be difficult to remove those that are no longer current.
A council spokesperson said, “The council is working on tracking and removing out of date planning notices, and improving internal systems so that they are removed in a timely manner going forward.”
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