Financial Times

City gets tough on billboard advertising
By Chaturi Dissanayake
New guidelines to advertise in the city of Colombo since January 2006 have dismayed ad agencies and seen some register their protest in court.
Already the Colombo Municipality, for which the guidelines were issued by Commissioner Dr. Jayantha Liyanage, has been challenged in court.

The council said the guidelines, a copy of which was obtained by The Sunday Times FT, were introduced in an effort to streamline the outdoor advertising process in Colombo’s city limits. A number of clauses that have been included have given rise to disagreements between the city council and advertising companies.

In a rather bold attempt, the Municipal Council has prohibited the display of hoardings in some of the most popular streets for such advertising. The streets that are out of bounds as mentioned in Clause No 3 of the guidelines are Independence Avenue, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Ananda Kumaraswamy Mawatha, Horton Place, Castle Street and Galle Face Centre Road. Added to this restriction is the limitation of the display of advertisements within 100 metres of each connected junction on the above mentioned roads.

The guidelines have also limited the display of hoardings alongside parks specifically stating that the distance between two fixtures should be a maximum of 30 metres along the perimeter of the park. However, the display of hoardings alongside Viharamahadevi Park is expressly prohibited in Clause No 4, which also prohibits such displays at Independence Square, the frontage of the Sports Ministry ground and along cemeteries.

In a separate clause, the display of hoardings in places of worship, schools, universities, other educational institutions, buildings of national importance, places of visual quality and diplomatic missions have been banned. Further, there are limits on displays around monuments where it is stated that advertisers can only display a minimum of 10 metres away from such statues as long as the hoarding does not “obliterate the monument”.

The guidelines also ensure the interests of the property owners as the reason for these new rules came as a result of complaints made by city residents. The council has prohibited the display of billboards which would violate the owners’ right to “enjoy reasonable property frontage, ventilation and natural light”.

The council has limited the number of billboards to be displayed at an intersection with “three arms” with traffic signals to only one billboard, and an intersection with more than three arms with traffic signals to only three boards.

The boards can only be put up 100 metres away from the intersections. Furthermore, the guidelines specifically prohibit the display of advertisements on roundabouts, traffic diversion islands public parks and centre medians.

The council also limits clusters of ad fixtures to only three in number within a distance of 10 metres minimum. The guidelines, however, provide discretionary powers to the Municipal Commissioner to allow billboards that are limited to one month or less display periods.

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