Tougher measures to crack down on illegal advertisements

Date published: 15/03/2007

Planning Minister Yvette Cooper today announced a package of new measures that will ensure councils can crackdown on companies who continue to advertise illegally on England's roads. Local planners will be able to track offenders on a new national database, with those companies prosecuted for repeat offending being 'named and shamed'.
 
In addition, councils now have stronger and more flexible powers to tackle those, whose adverts flout the law, dangerously distract drivers and blight the countryside.

All local planning authorities in England will now have access to a new database that will enable enforcement officers to enter and pull out details of prosecutions and formal cautions against companies and individuals who have unlawfully displayed advertisements. The database will help them to build a case for prosecution within their own areas providing background to a company’s history and help them to track down persistent offenders.

Many councils have already brought forward successful prosecutions and Ministers are calling for this to be replicated across the country. In Stockport and the surrounding area, 243 illegal advertisements have been removed within the last 12 months but in other areas the picture is not so encouraging. To support this, new regulations also published today update and improve the current arrangements for controlling outdoor advertisements and make the legislation more responsive to rapidly changing forms of advertising.

Yvette Cooper said: "Many of these illegal ads are not just a blight on the countryside, they are also downright dangerous. Local councils have got the power to act  and I want to see more taking action so we don’t simply see these trailer ads moving from one field to another across the local council boundaries".