Winchelsea Traffic Signs Project
What we achieved
Eventually, both the Highways Agency and
County Council agreed to review their signage in and around
Winchelsea. The County Council review was completed and implemented
in January 2005. The Highways Agency began their review in
2002 and completed work in September 2006.
By January 2007, we had succeeded in having
removed 99 signs displayed on 88 panels supported by 88 posts
at 54 sites.
Unfortunately, over the same period, there
was an offsetting addition of 67 new signs displayed on 60
new panels supported by 30 posts at 21 sites.
So, in net terms, we succeeded in removing
32 signs displayed on 28 panels supported by 51 posts at 33
sites. While this is not bad --- a net cut of about 24% in
sites, 28% in posts, and about 14% in both panels and signs
--- it is a case of “two steps forward, one step back”.
The main culprits responsible for adding
new signs were the Highways Agency and a quango called Sustrans.
The latter has erected 15 signs within a single ½-mile
stretch of road. Moreover, the signs are for a cyclepath that
does not exist ---except perhaps on a map in London!
Sustrans was set up apparently to promote
cycling for environmental reasons. Unfortunately, it seems
to be an urban organisation which believes that cycle paths
in the countryside are leisure facilities for people driving
out from towns and not as a transport facility for the rural
population. Its urban mindset does not seem to recognise that
its signs are blighting the countryside it is encouraging
people to come to see.
Our figures exclude a number of signs that
were erected and removed between our surveys, such as the
motorway-style sign that was supposed to direct traffic coming
out of a side road that led off a C road. No doubt, the location
looked good on a map in Guildford.
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