The placing of billboards will be regulated by law as of January 2015 following the approval of an amendment to the Construction Act in Parliament on Tuesday. Instead of the current practice wherein billboards are listed as advertisement devices, they will now be included among advertisement structures as of January of next year and will fall under the remit of the Construction Act.
At the same time, billboards will be ranked according to size, which will then also determine the respective fees. Billboards will also be driven further away from roads, as a minimum distance of 100 metres between a road and a billboard will apply outside cities and towns near highways and those first-class roads that cater to international transport. The current adverts that don't comply with this new requirement will need to be removed by January 1, 2017. The bill, designed to foster greater safety on the roads, was tabled by governing Smer-SD party MPs Igor Choma and Renáta Zmajkovičová and was approved by 78 legislators.
