ALTHOUGH tremendously unsightly, the For Sale and To Let signs tottering in front gardens or screwed to the honey-coloured stone façades of our town’s beautiful buildings could be considered an unfortunate necessity.

Their use is strictly controlled through The Town and Country Planning (control of advertisement) Regulations 2007, which make an allowance for the signs to be erected temporarily in order to alert potential purchasers or tenants that a particular premises is available for purchase or rent, but clearly specify that they must be removed within 14 days of completion.

In recent times, it has been impossible to miss a proliferation of these boards being used in ways which would seem to clearly contravene the regulations.

They’re placed outside premises which are not for sale or rent at all, but are rather used to advertise school fêtes, flower shows or other local events.

Whilst this may superficially appear a worthy and community spirited act on the part of the agencies concerned, it’s worthwhile noting that the greater part of the board advertises the estate or letting agency itself, with the details of the event relegated to small type at the bottom.

The latest version of this objectionable corporate fly posting, which seems to have proliferated so widely around West Oxfordshire, has abandoned even this fig leaf of community spirit.

It baldly and plainly puffs a company competition and urges us to visit the company website in order to enter.

Such boards, which are no different from a regular advertising billboard, are quite clearly against both the spirit and letter of the planning regulations.

I would urge our council’s planning department to crack down on this blatant abuse of the allowance made under the regulations for the display of such signs and to preserve our town from being plastered with this spam advertising.

We wouldn’t tolerate other corporations erecting advertising eyesore billboards wherever they please around the town, so why are estate and rental agencies permitted to get away with it?

In the meantime, if the agencies concerned are keen to support our local schools and churches, I’m sure that a suitable cash donation to those causes would be most welcome and would have the additional benefit of not disfiguring our town’s venerable buildings and roadsides.

MARTIN LAWSON-SMITH Eastfield Road, Witney