I was walking up Forest Hill Rd earlier and I notice that a car has been strategically parked at the bottom of Canonbie Road, just at the junction. It is plastered (and I do mean plastered) in adverts to buy old cars.

The car is fully taxed until next February and, one assumes, is fully roadworthy. I suspect it won't move very far in that period, if at all. Probably no offence is being committed, unless it is parked illegally close to the junction, which I imagine they have been careful to avoid.

It does however seem odd that you can do that without any planning permission or anything. There was a lot of discussion on here about the church signs in Manor Mount and I would say this is at least as offensive to the eye if not more so. I'd be pretty p**sed off if it was outside my house!!

I'm with you on this - I do know a bit about this I'll confess......basically you need advertisement consent to display an advert and it is actually a criminal offence to display one without consent. However there are classes of deemed consent for which you do not need to get permission from the Council. One of these is the display of an advertisement on a vehicle. The catch to this is that it is not allowed if the vehicle is solely being used for the purposes of displaying the advert - i.e. if it doesn't move.

Could be difficult to prove and I suspect the Council would be completely disinterested in pursuing it but worth knowing. It's supposed to allow adverts on tradesmens vans etc but prevent static adverts on permanently parked vehicles.

Thanks planner....interesting to hear an informed view. In retrospect I suppose it is obvious that there must be some way of controlling such a thing.

I guess I can now put to bed my proposed money making plan to put parked cars along every street and sell the space to companies.

Oh well, back to plan B!!

There is. Contact Lewisham Trading Standards. They can fine the owner. I think they will probably confiscate the car if the owner is a trader. If he is a private seller he will probably be asked to remove the adverts.

Is the 'static' part of the regulation fairly recent? It's a long time since I studied the T&C Planning system at university but I don't remember that part of it but do remember my lecturer illustrating it by referring to the adverts on vehicles you see littered about fields alongside major roads. Perhaps the LPA just aren't interested in pursuing those sorts of breach.

I believe it is also 'illegal' to place 'for sale' signs in/on a vehicle on a public highway.

Just to be clear, this is a bit more than someone sticking a 'For Sale' sign on a car. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me to be a car parked there purely as advertising for a business and placed to be visible to all the traffic travelling along Forest Hill Rd.

I thought it was an offence to advertise on a public carriageway. I once had a very interesting conversation about parking in the area with a local councillor and he told me that it is even an offence to advertise the second hand sale of a car by putting a piece of paper in the window if the car is parked on the carriageway.

I've seen 3 of these cars - all different makes but virtually identical messages (from what I can make out, the owner has obviously not come from the "less is more' school of advertising.

AA Bill seems to be the company.

There's the one on Canonbie as mentioned, one on Sydenham Hill, and one outside the Livesey hall near the Savacentre.

Are these all in Lewisham?

Also one parked on Brockley Grove

A quick web search shows AA Bill are based in Boveney Road, Forest Hill, tel 07919 562273 or 0203 330 6886

Is it not the same approach as the removal guys offering van with a man, who have parked their battered vans throughout east dulwich?

These cars are still around. Lewisham Environment have asked for details to be sent to recycle@lewisham.gov.uk.