By Stefanos Evripidou
AFTER two and a half hours of tit-for-tat wrangling, heated debate and strong accusations, parliament finally passed a bill on roadside billboards yesterday, paving the way for the removal of most billboards within the city and moving back those lining the highway, while also putting a ban on mobile advertising units.
The new legislation sets out billboard dimensions, regulates the positioning of advertising boards, stipulates minimum distances from roads and highways and gives the Communications Ministry the authority to enforce the legislation. This allows the ministry to prevent new boards from being put up illegally and to remove existing ones that don’t meet the criteria.
A bill was first introduced last year in an attempt to regulate the new wave of outdoor advertising but was withdrawn after it was so heavily amended that then Communications Minister Averoff Neophytou described it as “unrecognisable”.
The latest controversial bill was passed after much negotiation and debate with ten new amendments on the table. Some were rejected or withdrawn but others remained. As a result, billboard companies will face significant restrictions on their operations.
The new provisions ban billboards closer than three metres from urban streets and 40 metres from highways. Any billboards on the highway must be three kilometres apart. City billboards should be no bigger than 3 x 4m and highway billboards no bigger than 6 x 4m.
However, some deputies argued that the latter size should be permissible within the city but at a distance of 10m from the pavements. After intervention from Greens deputy George Perdikis, the deputies finally agreed to allow big boards in the city but no closer than 15 metres from the streets.
A proposal to ban mobile advertising units, seen as dangerously distracting to motorists, was also passed. But the proposal banning floodlights from lighting billboards was eventually rejected.
The Communications Ministry was appointed official licensor for highway billboards while each municipality will be responsible for giving out licences within cities.
Once the bill is published in the Official Gazette, billboarders will have a transitional period until October 1 this year to comply with the regulations. In effect, existing billboards within the cities and on the highways will either be pushed back or torn down.
The bill was passed with 23 deputies from DIKO, AKEL, United Democrats and the Green party voting for, DISY deputy George Tasou voting against and 14 DISY deputies abstaining.
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