Update 17:34 - Billboard supplier defends the idea

The transport authorities are reconsidering installing floating billboards at several beaches across the island after “negative public outcry”. 

Transport Malta came under heavy flack on social media yesterday following media revelations that floating billboards could be set up at nearly all of the beaches across Malta and Gozo this summer.

But a businessman who applied to supply the billboards said the issue was a storm in a teacup. 

"We aren't talking about huge signs," he said, arguing the billboards would be much smaller than the ones people were accustomed to seeing on the roads. He supplied timesofmalta.com with an image of the proposed size (see below).  

Asked why a businessman would want to spend money on advertising that people couldn't see, the man - who asked not to be named - was coy. "I thought it was an interesting idea worth exploring," he said. 

Transport Malta sources said meetings had been held yesterday to discuss the viability of the project and that in all likelihood this would not be going ahead. “It looks like this will be thrown out of the window after the negative public outcry. The feeling is that it won’t go ahead,” the sources said.

Reports about the aquatic billboards prompted many to poke fun at the national authorities yesterday and even led to the setting up of an online petition to halt the process.

The idea behind this was similar to bus shelters:to help finance them, we allow companies to use the advertising space

“Are they serious? Not satisfied with filling the island with billboards, now they want to cover the beaches. Unbelievable,” Anthony Agius wrote on Facebook. Ironically the reports on the floating advertisements came on the back of a planning authority drive to reduce the number of billboards crowding Maltese roads.

A comparison image supplied by a businessman interested in floating the idea.

A spokesman for the transport body said the original idea behind the floating bill boards was to help finance the maintenance of swimmer zones. “The idea behind this was similar to that of bus shelters: to help finance them, we allow companies to use the advertising space,” the spokesman said, denying that the project had been proposed by industry players.

He added that the floating signs were never earmarked for all swimming zones, although a list of the potential spots, circulated to business in a newsletter, included most of them.

“This was really meant for swimming zones around waterpolo pitches and so on. We didn’t envisage picturesque beaches covered in floating billboards,” the spokesman said. So far the only paperwork on the matter has been an expression of interest published in September of last year.

Meanwhile, a planning authority spokesman said the project would be guided by several pieces of legislation and that any potential advertisements would have to meet requirements set out by the law. These, he said, included the latest legal notice, published earlier this year, on billboards.

Furthermore, depending on the type of anchorage used and the seabed to be affected, permission could also be required for this work, the spokesman added.