THREE cheers for the campaigners who have asked, and asked… and asked again for Montagu to be cleaned up.

Yesterday, a number of billboard advertisements were removed from Fort Montagu Park – but it’s not all done yet.

Around 17 billboard signs were up – you didn’t want to have a view of the sea, did you? You were not interested in admiring one of the beautiful vistas on our island? You had no interest in seeing the sea lapping at the shore or the yachts bobbing on the water?

Well, thankfully now you can – to an extent. There’s still a half dozen signs present, but driving past the site last night, it is a vast improvement.

The situation was very much out of hand – to the extent that advertising there might have been harming some of the businesses.

One protest sign popped up in recent weeks urging people not to make use of the businesses whose signs were a blot on the landscape. That might be a bit much. What is really needed is proper regulation of such matters.

We would pay tribute to Tribune columnist Diane Phillips for raising the matter again to the public’s attention in her articles for the newspaper, but there is plenty of credit to go around.

Credit too goes to Loretta Butler-Turner, who played a part in restoring the area when she was an MP and who revealed to The Tribune that areas such as Saunders Beach will also see signs being pulled down.

Bruce Raine launched a petition that gained hundreds of signatures from people who were fed up of the gaudy signs blocking the view to the sea.

He told The Tribune yesterday that the clean-up should not stop there – and that there should be moves to deal with a host of vendors to see if they truly should be there, and to clamp down on boat operators using the public dock to pick up and drop off for commercial trips without paying for the privilege.

A Cabinet minister is apparently in full agreement with the concerns raised – do not be shy, minister, raise your voice and join the chorus.

Now, this is the first step, cleaning up the mess that is there in the first place.

The second step is making sure the mess does not come back.

Let’s make sure there are proper regulations in place – and adhered to – with regard to putting up such advertisements. If you don’t abide by the rules, your sign gets pulled down – and perhaps you should be paying a fine too. Those rulebreakers ought to be easy to track down – they will likely have their phone number on the sign itself.

We should also get in the habit of tidying up after ourselves. Time and again you see signs for events that have passed months ago – but the organisations so quick to put them up are so slow to bring them down.

Some politicians should not sit too easily either – there are posters still up in places from the last election. We would not be surprised if there are some up from the election before somewhere…

But for now, well done to all who refused to put up with rampant commercialisation at the expense of the beauty of our country.

Too often, we feel that change will not come no matter what we do. Here is proof positive that is not the case.