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Mutsawashe Mashandure Herald Correspondent
ILLEGAL billboards and advertisements on major highways will be pulled down by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development.
Billboards and commercial vending are now banned within 60 metres of any trunk road and 500m of any trunk road intersection.
In a statement, the ministry said it is obliged by Section 48 of the Roads Act to regulate and restrict trade or any commercial activity along trunk roads.
“In light of the above, no person shall, without the written permission of the Department of Roads, carry on any trade or expose, offer, or manufacture for sale any goods on a road or in any area alongside a road within a distance of 60metres from the boundary of a road or in any area within 500 metres from any point of an intersection without prior approval,” said the ministry.
Soon, the ministry would be carrying out an audit and would remove all the illegal billboards.
“The ministry will undertake to carry out a thorough audit of all the said billboards with the view to declutter the road service spaces and remove all the illegal billboards for a safer and more trafficable road as the good outlook of the country’s urban centres”.
The ministry advised the public not to advertise on billboards along and within the service area of the trunk roads under the ministry’s control.
“Given the recent proliferation of billboards, the ministry wishes to notify members of the public that, with immediate effect, it has suspended the processing of requests for the erection of billboards and the issuance of authority to advertise on billboards along and within the service areas of the trunk under its control,” said the statement.
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