Here’s an easy win for Boris Johnson. Ban estate agents’ ‘for sale’ and ‘to let’ boards throughout the capital.

Of all the unnecessary visual clutter that clogs the London cityscape, these boards must be among the most widespread, the ugliest and certainly the most dispensable. With at least one estate agent’s office within walking distance of every home, free property magazines shoved through every letterbox and of course the agents’ ubiquitous internet presence, no one actually needs these boards anymore to sell their home, or to find another one.

And estate agents know this full well. They simply use the boards as almost-free advertising for their brand, rather than for the actual property in question. And they leave them up for weeks after the property has been sold or let, if they can get away with it. No estate agent would really mind too much if they had to take down all their boards, as long as their competitors had to do the same.

Estate agents’ boards are already banned from some upmarket private estates and from many conservation areas, but it needs mayoral might to get them removed from the capital altogether.

Exceptions could be made for individuals selling their property direct, without the use of an agent, and possibly for commercial property.

At a stroke, the appearance of residential streets and estates throughout London could be transformed for the better.