The Sintra executive has already moved forward with the removal of all outdoors illegal spread throughout the 15 parishes of the municipality, including advertising signs next to traffic signs. The objective is to eliminate all outdoors illegal and stop the growth of the phenomenon. A political decision that was “late”, in the words of Marco Almeida, elected president of Sintra City Council, who confirmed to DN the start of the cleaning operation. “It’s been years too long with a municipality at a standstill, where everything was left abandoned. We decided to move forward with this operation to bring order to outdoor advertising, for several reasons. Not only for the safety of those who drive and walk in public spaces, but also to contribute to the pride of those who live in Sintra”said the mayor elected by the PSDB in October 2025.
The decision results from a survey carried out by an external company that, at the end of 2025, cataloged the 517 outdoors in the municipality, 181 of which were identified as illegal and, of these, 86 will be in areas under the responsibility of Infraestruturas de Portugal, that is, close to streets and roads. 77 of a political nature were also catalogued, 45 posters with municipal and national institutional information and 31 with advertising considered inappropriate, in addition to the 38 structures without any poster or information printed on them. What can increase the number of outdoors to remove, beyond 250.
The removal process has already begun and Sintra City Hall services have already removed 19 structures. And, according to Marco Almeida, the municipality has been notifying the 72 entities involved – advertisers, companies that own structures and owners of the land where the structures that support the billboards are mounted – to remove them under legal terms and within a short period of time. “The process will follow all legal steps. The survey has been carried out, entities and the private sector are being notified and, subsequently, we will carry out the removal. If they do not do so voluntarily, municipal services will take action and the respective invoice will be sent to those who do not comply with the rules”, warned the mayor elected by the PSDB, without quantifying the costs of the operation, as it is not possible to assess who will fail to comply.
In Sintra, as in many other places in Portugal, the outdoors they are almost omnipresent, spread strategically in central places to enter the consumer’s eyes, full of information, political propaganda or advertising. Something that harms society more than it benefits, according to Marco Almeida: “The public space belongs to the people of Sintra, not just a few, and must be respected. The Chamber itself showed the way by removing a municipal structure damaged by bad weather, which will never return, in one of the main accesses to the village. We demand it, but we also set an example. The mess of rusty, twisted, abandoned iron and non-respect for the rules must end.”
Regarding posters of a political nature, Portuguese law requires the removal of electoral propaganda without defining a deadline for this to happen, and the responsibility lies with the parties and/or candidates that installed it, and it is up to the municipality to define the deadlines and conditions for this removal, after the election. That’s why, the president of the municipality of Sintrense appeals “to compliance with the law” and “to the common sense of the parties, so that, at least, they do not leave the structures abandoned”.
In Lisbon, for example, and as DN reported first-hand, the Vizinhos de Lisboa association asked the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, to notify the presidential campaigns of António José Seguro, Marques Mendes and André Ventura, demanding that they remove the electoral posters from public roads, “several weeks after the conclusion of the electoral act”, whose second round took place on February 8 and elected Seguro, and two months after the first round.
But, in Sintra, Marco Almeida wants to go further and remove everyone who is outside the law, for security and architectural reasons as the municipality has a village, Sintra, a World Heritage Site. The debris and material resulting from the cleaning operation of the outdoors will be reused by city services.
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