NINETEEN days to go, and the signs are not good that the bad signs are on their way out. October 1 is the deadline for advertising companies to remove or move back all those ugly and dangerously distracting billboards that have lined our roads and motorways for more than three years. The signs are not good because not enough has been done so far by the advertising companies which put up the billboards and by the municipal authorities on whose patch they are sited.
Yesterday, Communications and Works Minister Kikis Kazamias called both to task, warning that if government workers had to tear down the offending roadsigns the resulting bill would be passed on. His warning followed an earlier threat from the Public Works Department (PWD) that its men would tear down all those billboards that remain after the deadline. While Kazamias indicated that a 30-day extension would be allowed to satisfy legal requirements, at least the authorities now mean business and the PWD has the backing of government.
The PWD’s previous efforts to rid the island of these eyesores were thwarted by a combination of advertising companies putting up two fingers to the law (80 per cent of the road signs were always deemed illegal), municipalities keen to make a quick buck through charging the billboard companies and House deputies who failed to do their job despite a mountain of evidence that the signs were as dangerous to drivers as they were damaging to the environment.
The billboards first appeared in 1999, and they spread like a nasty rash. As arguments raged about their legality the PWD insisted that most of them – whether they had a ‘permit’ from the municipality or not – were illegal since they did not have a go-ahead from the authority with the responsibility to approve them – the PWD. Environmentalists weighed in as billboards sprang up everywhere; even the European Union voiced its displeasure at how town and country were being defaced.
As thousands of signs competed for the attention of passing drivers on motorways and at roundabouts, police blamed the billboards for up to 20 road deaths a year since they were a distraction – they were sited to catch the eye and they did just that. In 2001, Averoff Neophytou, then Works Minister, vowed to rid the island of this “menace”. He pointed out that the existing law, which dated back to 1956, would prevent billboards being put up within 75 metres of any motorway, “or in any spot that could distract drivers”.
As laws go, that would seem to be enough – but this is Cyprus. Outdoor advertising representatives won a court case preventing the state from tearing down any billboards without a court order, deputies thwarted proposed legislation as rumours swirled that some were improperly influenced… and the then government gave up.
Fast forward to this year; finally, a law that billboards must be 40 metres away from highways and banning them from sites at traffic lights and junctions is in effect. For many potential advertisers, paying for a message restricted in size and some distance from the highway would not be money well spent, so the attraction of the billboards will drop. While it would be better still if they were banned completely, controlling their numbers – they must now be three kilometres apart alongside motorways – and lessening their effect and appeal is a step forward.
The PWD must be as good as its word, tearing down any that remain after the deadline and the grace period, and the new siting laws must be enforced – hopefully there won’t be many takers for advertising sites that are moved back. For it to take so long to clean up this mess has been an indictment of the way Cyprus works – or, as in many other cases – fails to work.
