advertising boards & shop displays

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Highway licensing: shop displays, tables and chairs and advertising boards

Items on the public highway such as shop displays, advertising boards, tables and chairs, planters and pots are licensed or monitored by Highway Enforcement Team.

If you wish to report such an item that you believe to be an obstruction please  complete our obstructions on the public highway report form.

Licence Application forms

If you wish to apply for a licence to place tables and chairs, an advertising board or a shop display on the public highway please complete our Objects on the highway licence application form [PDF 96kb]

What we do

The Team is working with disabled people, traders' associations, access groups and others to achieve a compromise between all users of the highway. This allows certain items to be placed on the street while at the same time protecting access rights and improving safety.

Where we do it

The Highway Enforcement Team only has jurisdiction over the public highway. It has no authority the over the very many patches of private or council property that adjoin the highway. It has no say in advertising or billboards on private land. 

For control purposes the City is presently divided into two types of area: Target Zones and the Licensed Highway.

Target Zones

These are in the busiest areas of the City and presently consist of:

• The Lanes
• The North Laine
• Brunswick and Adelaide
• George Street, Hove
• Rottingdean Village Centre
• The St. James Street area of Kemptown
• Seven Dials
• Sections of Western Road
• Preston Street
• Queens Road
• West Street
• North Street

All traders in these areas who want to put things on the public highway need to have written permission (a licence). These Licences specify where items can be placed and/or the maximum area that can be taken up.  

Licensees have to display a green sticker (like a Tax Disc) in their door or window to show that they have a licence. The discs indicate where things are allowed to be placed.

On some sites metal studs or markings in paint help to show the limits of licensed areas or the positions of boards. The positions are based upon the best possible compromise between the needs and rights of all Highway users.

Regular visits by the council's Highway Enforcement Officers take place in all these areas to check that traders have a licence and are operating under its conditions.

The Licensed Highway

All tables and chairs on the public highway have to be licensed. Shopkeepers' items can be permitted outside the Target Zones on an informal basis; with local conditions and common sense dictating where things can be put.  

Because of the topography and history of the City, many public pavements are narrower than any minimum width we might prescribe. We therefore do not set a city-wide minimum width of free pavement. However, generally speaking, except in pedestrian zones, a safe clear width of pavement for a wheelchair or double-buggy should be maintained at all times.

Please note that the Highway Enforcement Team has no authority over licences for  buskers, street traders or pedlars. Street traders' licences and other permissions (for stalls not associated with a shop, burger vans, charity collections etc.) are dealt with by the Environmental Health Section (01273 294429) .

Future plans

Officers will be extending the Target Zones to cover other selcted areas of the City during the course of this financial year. 

 

For further information please tel: (01273) 292071