Rural campaigners call for clampdown on roadside billboards

Countryside campaigners have called for a clampdown on advertising in roadside fields in a new report.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England said that the use of advertising hoardings was spreading beside major cross-country roads like a “rash”, defacing the countryside and reducing safety.

The CPRE estimated that there were now around 900 billboards across England – one for every three miles of major fast road.

The advertisements are either placed on trailers in fields beside motorways and other major cross-country roads or on large advertising hoardings on land alongside motorways. Other types of roadside advertising can be, and is, authorised under regulations, but are predominately located in urban areas.

The CPRE said that it believed that most of these huge advertising hoardings had been set up without obtaining the necessary regulatory consent.

Paul Miner, CPRE’s Planning Campaigner, said: “For more than 50 years, planning controls have saved the English landscape from the pox of outdoor advertising. This achievement is now in danger. Billboards and hoardings are mushrooming alongside motorways and major roads across England, despite government policy and regulations clearly stating they should be strictly controlled.”

The CPRE said that the advertisements were designed to grab the attention of motorists and had no regard for either the character of the countryside or road safety. Campaigners said there were even hoardings placed next to signs telling drivers to change lanes because of roadworks.

The CPRE survey also examined firms behind roadside advertising and found that at least six websites specialising directly in that area. A claim on one firm’s website said that “by being completely mobile, we have the flexibility to put your advertisement where planning permission would not normally be granted”, the CPRE reported.

The Outdoor Advertising council has dissociated itself from motorway advertising. However, the CPRE said that they had found a number of well-known companies, including Costa Coffee, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Tesco, on motorway advertisements.

Mr Miner said: “We don’t have to put up with this flagrant abuse of planning rules. We welcome the government’s advice to local authorities that they should use the powers they have to take action. But this isn’t enough on its own.

“We need a proper legal duty to enforce planning control. Without this, the rash of roadside advertising will just keep coming back.”

(KMcA/SP)