Rogue billboards growing like weeds

 In Letters, Opinion

Editor:

There is a growing scourge in Ontario’s countryside that no one is talking about.

We may have come to accept, begrudgingly, the permanent billboards we have grown up with as their number and location are regulated.

But it’s not those billboards I am concerned about. It’s the thousands of rogue billboards that are growing like weeds on every highway in our region.

These rogue billboards are mounted on old transport trailers or farm trailers and are hauled into position on farm fields facing many of our roads and highways. It seems that these companies or individuals have found a loophole that allows them, with the landowner’s permission, to “temporarily” position a truck trailer or farm wagon and sell the advertising space to businesses.

In fact, these rogue billboards are illegal. Commercial billboard locations must be approved by the province, municipality or county. Conversely these rogue billboards have been approved by no one. No level of government is cracking down on this proliferation of these illegal billboards that are visually polluting our countryside.

Once the Ministry of Transportation gets a complaint and gives the rogue billboard owner notice to move or come down, it is either ignored or the trailer is moved a few feet and the illegal signage continues.

Put simply, rogue billboards are an enforcement issue, and no one is doing anything to curb this growing blight. Next time you are on our highways and byways count the number of rogue billboards that you see as they are increasing in number every day.

It’s time for our local politicians to ask the MTO to enforce the rules before the farm fields of Ontario begin to look like the worst of urban sprawl.

Jeff Shearer,

Nottawa

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