Planning permission has been granted on appeal for a small digital advertising board to be erected at the entrance of an MFG forecourt in Reading, Berkshire.
Advertising firm Wildstone Estates was initially refused permission to install the board at the Shinfield Road Shell site. Reading Borough Council’s planners ruled the changing of adverts on the 2.45m high by 1.23m wide digital device would “increase the risk of sudden and unpredictable vehicle movements, increasing the risk of collisions with other vehicles or pedestrians” at the high-traffic site.
Wildstone lodged a successful appeal against the refusal, with the Planning Inspectorate ruling that as the road on which the forecourt sits is “straight, level and well-lit, with good forward visibility, and subject to a 20mph speed restriction” the digital billboard “would not result in harm to highway safety”.
The Inspectorate also found that because the location is a commercial area that is home to “varied street furniture”, together with a large number of other signs and adverts, the billboard “would not appear unduly prominent or out of place”.
Wildstone has partnered with MFG to install digital advertising boards at a number of sites of late. Some have been refused by local authorities, but Wildstone has appealed on more than one occasion, at times successfully.
