Councillor John Hooper has put the following Motion to the 2016 Local Government Conference on behalf of Willoughby City Council, that:-
LGNSW make representations to the NSW Government, via the Ministers for Roads and for Planning, for new guidelines for digital advertising on roads. These large, brightly illuminated and animated billboards can be distracting as well as ugly intrusions in our cityscape and on our freeways and main roads. These huge signs have appeared at Pymble on the Pacific Highway, all around the Airport and on the Gore Hill freeway.
Willoughby Local Environmental Plan 2012 [WLEP 2012] places restrictions on entities use of “Illuminated signs” in public places. Despite this, the State Government Environmental Planning Policy has provided some entities with the ability to bypass Local Legislation and erect signs in inappropriate areas. An example of this is SEPP (Infrastructure) 2007 which was used recently against some Sailors Bay Road residents to enable a local institution to erect a sign near a pedestrian crossing and so disregard all traffic and safety rules which would normally have to be taken into consideration.
The above Motion put to the LGNSW Conference relates mainly to larger signs. We hope to address this issue in time and have Legislation extended to suburban environs and so ensure the protection of community amenity.