New law would bar billboards from motorways

By Rita Kyriakides

THE GOVERNMENT is to submit legislation restricting the placement of advertising billboards within the next 10 days.

Communications and Works Minster Averoff Neophytou yesterday told the House Interior Committee that billboards had become a menace and ” have sprouted like mushrooms all over the island since the political parties were allowed to erect small billboards during the General elections in May.”

” The legislation that will be approved by the Cabinet will cover both existing billboards and new billboards,”said Neophytou.

The minister added that the existing law, which dates back to 1956, would prevent billboards from being erected within 75 metres of any motorway or in any spot that could distract drivers. Giant billboards currently line whole stretches of the island’s motorways.

Representatives of the Cyprus Professional Association of Outside Advertising, who won a court case preventing the state from tearing down any billboards without a court order, also attended the meeting.

The President of the Association, Rolandos Loizou, angrily told the Committee that advertisers paid thousands of pounds every year for billboards that had been licensed by the Municipalities and the Public Works Department.

The President of the Committee, Nicos Katsourides of AKEL, had to warn Loizou to calm down when he raised his voice and accused Neophytou of being unfair in his campaign to tear down all billboards, whether legal or illegal.

According to the Association, only eight per cent of all billboards have been erected in agreement with local authorities. They added that in the past two years, 823 billboards had sprouted up.

Green Party deputy George Perdikis told the Committee that billboards were being erected without any consideration to the environment and questioned why illegal billboards, such as those blocking pavements, had not been torn down.

Billboards have become an eyesore, with thousands lining the island’s roads. Police blame them for up to 20 road deaths a year, claiming drivers are distracted by the posters and fail to concentrate on the road.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.