A voluntary scheme in Durham under which student landlords pledged to abandon the ‘To Let’ boards, has failed to prevent their return. With over 12,000 students in Durham, the signs are unpopular with many of the city’s non-student residents, who believe they are a blot on the landscape of the beautiful city.
Residents hoped that the deal under which several major landlords, who had over 600 properties between them, all covered by landlord insurance and who had all agreed to stop displaying the signs, would spell the end of the very unpopular advertising boards. The pact was made even stronger when the DSU (Durham Students’ Union) decided to make not using the signs a condition of acceptance as an accredited landlord. However, over the recent weeks, some unaccredited landlords have been displaying the signs again.
Roberta Blackman-Woods, Labour MP for Durham, has called for a meeting where everyone involved can discuss the problem but in the meantime thinks Durham County Council should start to explore ‘Article 7’, which would ban the signs.
She said “I’m quite cross about this. I was sceptical about a voluntary scheme. But I gave the council, the university and the landlords a bit of space to see if they could get it to work. It seems as if it’s breaking down now. We cannot go anywhere except further regulation if the landlords don’t play ball. We cannot have a conservation area in the city centre covered from one end of the street to the other with ‘To Let’ boards.”
One local resident Mike Costello who is an opponent of ‘To Let’ signs thinks that the voluntary code had no chance of ever working. He has been behind the idea of implementing the Article 7 direction which would ban the signs. The council however, are confident that the situation is much better than in previous years and hope to continue to improve on that. If this is not the case they will look at other measures which could be both costly and time consuming, but they are prepared to implement them in order to protect the historic character of Durham.