The article ‘Illegal billboards still stand despite notices going back two years’ (February 20) contains a number of serious inaccuracies which must be clarified.

The Times of Malta failed to mention that the pending files included:

Those that are still active as the contravener has not yet paid their dues for the enforcement operations that have been carried out.

Those that have been removed by the contravener but, as itis practice for the Enforcement Unit, the enforcement file is not closed off immediately as monitoring continues for a number of months to ensure that the removed illegality is notre-installed.

Those that are not actually billboards but are adverts related to shops or establishments.

Those that have multiple enforcement orders on the same billboard in view of claims of different contraveners.

The Planning Authority is baffled how the Times of Malta came to the conclusion that there are 140 illegal billboards with an active pending enforcement. It would have expected this newspaper to verify this before publishing.

The Planning Authority embarked on this planned action after the publication of thenew regulations.

In the case of billboards, the removal is combined for logistical reasons. As already stated, this is part of a wider clean-up exercise which is ongoing. This is not the first time the Planning Authority has carried out this kind of exercise.

Upon reviewing enforcement actions that need to be carried out, the number is way smaller than the 140 mentioned in the Times of Malta article and, in the case of billboards, these do not exceed 40, which include the six cases that the Planning Authority acted upon last week.

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