What is the problem?

Giant mobile advert for Cresta Gems, A38 Derbyshire, taken 10 April 2005. Photo: Trevor Taylor

The number of hoardings is growing
CPRE and the Highways Agency have found a growing number of large advertising hoardings, often placed on trailers, in fields alongside major roads. The problem is nationwide, and appears to be most concentrated along the M1 (in Yorkshire), M5 (in Worcestershire and Somerset), M6 (in Cheshire and Staffordshire), M40 (between Oxford and Birmingham), and M62 (in Lancashire and Yorkshire).

England is relatively small and highly urbanised, so the impact of advertising spreading unchecked alongside our major roads is potentially huge. In some areas, CPRE volunteers have photographed one advertisement hoarding for every mile of motorway travelled.

Large hoardings are designed to be read and to distract. Combined with the high speeds normal on main roads and motorways, such hoardings have the potential to cause serious accidents.

Marketing firms and websites have sprung up, offering their trailer-mounted displays to advertisers and money to farmers willing to install such hoardings on their land. We recognise many farmers are facing economic hardship. But the right way forward is maintaining and increasing incentives for environmentally beneficial land management, not blighting the countryside with ugly advertising hoardings.

The regulations are confusing
Mounting adverts on trailers besides motorways and major roads appears to be exploiting a degree of confusion about the provisions of two sets of regulations: the 1992 Advertisement Regulations, and the 1995 General Permitted Development Order (GPDO). But we're clear that neither set of regulations contains any loophole which permits this kind of advertising.

We've named and hopefully shamed some of the companies involved in this abuse.