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Devon plan for multilingual road signs is abandoned
Page 18
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The cost of the scheme would outweigh the benefits, despite a spate of foreign trucks driving down narrow lanes. David Harris reports.
DEVON HAS REJECTED a plan for multilingual road signs to stop foreign hauliers driving down unsuitable roads.
Devon County Council has concluded that the cost of producing the signs would outweigh any benefits, even though the county has had to deal with several incidents after sat-nay systems directed truck drivers down narrow country lanes.
The government's Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has urged councils to think twice before spending money on translation — BBC research suggests that councils in the UK are spending £100m a year on translation services.
Road signs in foreign languages have proved controversial in recent months, not least the bilingual signs put up by the Highways Agency on the Shropshire-Cheshire border. These were not in English and Welsh,as might be expected,but in English and Polish due to the number of immigrant drivers working in the area.
On the other side of the country in February, drivers in Great She!ford, Cambridge encountered a sign declaring "Traffig O'ch Blaen", Welsh for"Traffic ControlAhead". This found its way into East Anglia because a team of workers from Cardiff were installing a sewer in the area and had brought the bilingual signs with them.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire County Council stressed that the sign had nothing to do with the council, but he added: "We do love the Welsh."The only bilingual road signs in Cambridgeshire have been installed by the Highways Agency — like those on the Welsh border, they are in Polish.