Ad description
Claims on www.redrow.co.uk featured an image of two houses. Text over the image stated "This development is coming soon. Register your interest today!". Further text stated "2, 3, 4 & 5 BEDROOM HOMES NOW AVAILABLE … Conveniently located just to the south west of Cheltenham, within easy reach of both the town and the M5, Brizen view is perfectly placed for you and your family. With a magnificent collection of four and five bedroom homes from the Heritage Collection, this is exclusive, executive living at its best".
Issue
The complainant, who understood that planning permission for the development had not yet been granted, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
Redrow Homes Ltd provided a document prepared by Tewksbury, Cheltenham and Gloucester Borough Councils entitled "Strategic Allocation", which they said was with the Secretary of State and would be subject to a public enquiry later in the year. They said the document detailed the land that had been allocated for residential development in the three boroughs and highlighted where the plan identified the Redrow site. They acknowledged that the site did not have planning permission, but believed that it would soon be granted. They confirmed Redrow had submitted a full planning application to Cheltenham Borough Council for 376 dwellings and ancillary public open space, which they hoped would be finalised later in the year. They were willing to add a qualification, such as "subject to planning", to the ad to clarify the situation.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered consumers would interpret the claim "This development is coming soon. Register your interest today!", with an image of two houses, to mean that the housing development had been granted planning permission to be built. We considered the claims "2, 3, 4 & 5 BEDROOM HOMES NOW AVAILABLE" and "Conveniently located just to the south west of Cheltenham, within easy reach of both the town and the M5, Bizen view is perfectly placed for you and your family" also contributed to that impression. While we acknowledged that the development was included in the relevant councils' "Strategic Allocation" document, we understood that planning permission had not been granted. We considered that information was likely to have impact on whether the consumer made a transactional decision, such as registering their interest, which the ad invited them to do. We also considered the qualification "subject to planning" would contradict the overall impression a consumer was likely to get from the ad. Because we considered the ad implied the development had already obtained planning permission, which we understood was not the case, we concluded it was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
(Misleading advertising) and
3.7
3.7
Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation.
(Substantiation).
Action
The ad must not appear in its current form. We told Redrow Homes Ltd to ensure future marketing communications did not misleadingly imply planning permission for their developments had been granted.
