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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for their contributions. The clause is designed to ensure that breaches of the control of advertisements regulations do not occur alongside motorways and trunk roads. It places a duty on local planning authorities to take enforcement action in every case where the regulations are breached. However, we shall resist the amendment because we believe that local planning authorities’ enforcement powers are discretionary. A duty to enforce in all cases, irrespective of the nature and circumstances of the breach, would put an additional and unwarranted burden on local authorities. The Government do not consider that this matter should be subject to specific regulations, but, of course, they are concerned about the proliferation of advertisements alongside motorways, and are working on several initiatives to ensure that where such breaches occur, advertisements are quickly removed. What action are the Government taking? We have met representatives from local planning authorities, particularly in the north-west where there have been some specific problems about the M6. We have written to all local planning authorities, reminding them of their powers to act in these cases, and urging them to do so. We have had positive responses from them. The ODPM has also written to those companies and advertisers that are displaying advertisements on these sites, setting out the regulations and asking them to remove unlawful advertisements. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has been working with the Highways Agency, the Local Government Association, the Planning Advisory Service and the Planning Officers Society to seek ways to deal with advertisers and to prevent these advertisements from being displayed. We are looking at other measures that we may introduce to help local authorities to deal with the problem and to eradicate unlawful motorway advertising. In view of that explanation of work that has recently been undertaken, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.