People making planning applications will soon be required to display a notice of their proposed development on site, the Department of Planning has announced.

Signs should be installed clearly and visibly as soon as possible, once the wording has been provided by the Department.

They must stay in place until at least one week after the appeal period for the development has ended.

The Department said: “This new initiative addresses an objective of the Public Access to Information Act which is to have more information placed in the public domain as a matter of routine.

“It also meets the Department of Planning’s objective of providing a more efficient and customer-friendly planning regime; and it addresses the concerns of the public and NGOs which are that newspaper advertisements alone are insufficient to properly notify the public of proposed developments across the Island.”

The initiative will come into effect on January 25.