More than 200 billboards have been registered with the planning authority since new regulations came into effect this week, a spokesman said.
The spokesman told the Times of Malta that several illegal billboards had also been removed from the island’s roads and some 270 were expected to be cleared away in the coming weeks.
He added that the authority was now vetting the registered billboards to ensure registrations were valid.
The authority began clamping down on irregular billboards after a new legal notice came into force on Tuesday. The notice, drafted by Planning Parliamentary Secretary Deborah Schembri, has eliminated loopholes previously exploited by owners while also introducing more rigorous enforcement and higher fines.
Moroever, the new legal notice targets both stationary billboards and the parked vehicles which are often used in order to display advertisements.
These may be towed away and are subject to fines. The legal notice is aimed, among other things, at reducing the high number of billboards on the roads.
Hundreds of billboards have been erected all over Malta in the past months, turning the island into a veritable notice board eyesore. Under the new regulations all billboards will have to be registered with Transport Malta and will cost a yearly licence of €1,500.
Meanwhile, the authority spokesman said owners were urged to remove billboards themselves, because if government officials were called in, charges would be billed to the owners.
One billboard owner, who spoke to this newspaper under the condition of anon-ymity, said that he had tried to register his billboards with the authority but had encountered a paperwork nightmare. He said no records of his previous permits were available at the authority and he had been given a narrow window to remove his billboard before being fined.
Asked about the procedure, the spokesman said the authority did have a register and a copy of all the permits previously issued.
Several billboard clusters have already been removed such as those near the Pietà Boċċi club, where seven billboards quickly became two.
The Nationalist Party has criticised the legal notice which limits political billboards to only three months before the election.
Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said that the legal notice effectively muzzled the PN from spreading its political message. The PN has requested that the courts block the “undemocratic” regulations from being enforced and that a warrant of prohibitory injunction against Transport Malta and the Planning Authority be granted provisionally.