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MEPA’s objective on the placing of billboards along the arterial road network has always been that of improving the aesthetical quality of the product being offered. In the past months MEPA made it clear to the contractors in this sector that temporary billboards were no longer being permitted and that they should come up with better designs for the fixing of a number of permanent ones.
A number of planning applications for permanent billboards were in fact submitted in the past months and out of these eighteen were approved during this year. The billboards approved were not sanctioned as they were not under enforcement action but were approved as a replacement to them. In fact some of these have been fixed in the past days, after MEPA embarked on a campaign aimed at removing the old type of billboards from our roads.
MEPA had a number of discussions with ADT through which it was agreed that in the processing of these and other future planning applications MEPA will be looking into the design and aesthetic matters of the proposal whilst the traffic issues will be dealt with from their end.
At the moment MEPA is preparing a planning subsidiary guideline on the fixing of permanent billboards. This document will be issued for public consultation in the following weeks.
Sylvana DeBono
PRO, Malta Environment and Planning Authority
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