Just notified to ARM is an article which appeared earlier this year in 'Surveyor' magazine, under the title: "Anti-Metric Campaigners Step up Road Sign Attacks", by Robert Bond.

Possibly the most interesting feature of the article is the comments of Chris Brimley, Highways Engineer for the norotrious Brentwood Borough Council, which on four separate occasions has erected clusters of illegal metric signs and only admitted its errors through unusually tightly gritted teeth (which appear to have been more firmly gritted than Brentwood's roads are each winter).

Chris Brimley said: "I admit our signs were a mistake. But scores of authorities have made similar mistakes and the DTLR should clarify the regulations which have produced a jumble of different weights and measures. It's a complete and utter mess".

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "We plan no major changes to the Regulations. The Regulations are quite clear. If local authorities misunderstand them, that's their fault, isn't it?".

NOTE: When first cornered by the press in Brentwood over having erected illegal metric signs, Mr Brimley told them: "The regulations are complex and obscure".

The URL for this article is:

http://www.ukmetrication.com/pressreports7.htm


Tony Bennett

Solution is to send both representatives copy of the July 16th dept of Transport letter and ask if that is clear enough.

For convenience, here is the article, dated 01-10-02, by Robert Bond:

Anti-metrication activists are to step up their attacks on metric road signs after a national campaign of direct action which has highlighted numerous breaches by councils of traffic signs regulations.

The campaign, which is supported by the UK Independence Party, the British Weights and Measures Association and a group called Active Resistance to Metrication, claims to have successfully removed or 'converted' more than 800 metric signs erected by 75 councils and other bodies.

It launched its latest offensive last weekend in Hastings, East Sussex, where more than 40 metric signs on the seafront and in the town centre were altered to give Imperial measurements. This followed a London 'day of action' at the end of December when sites in Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham were targeted.

So far the main focus has been on metric-only highway signs outlawed in the 1994 traffic signs regulations, although various fingerpost direction signs for pedestrians have also been tampered with.

But Tony Bennett, who heads the UKIP 'Guard the Yard' campaign and is an ARM council member, suggested it was 'time to step up operations' and tape over the metric element of approved dual metric and Imperial height restriction signs.

He claimed the Government was bent on introducing metric road signs within the next 5 to 10 years.

When challenged, some councils have admitted mistakes and agreed to change unapproved signs. Broxbourne council is to erect dual height restriction signs this month at a Hoddeston underpass after activists changed its 1.4m warning to read 4'6".

Principal traffic engineer, Peter Simpson, said the rules were not clear cut as the underpass was on private land.

'We've taken the pragmatic view that probably it should be signed in both Imperial and metric to be on the safe side,' he said.

Cambridgeshire County Council admitted a mistake when challenged about two metric-only width restriction signs. 'There was no ulterior motive on our part, it was just a mistake which we've now corrected,' said traffic management team leader David Brace.

But Brentwood Council called in the police when activists changed five width restriction signs. Chief traffic and transportation engineer Chris Brimley said he had admitted that the metric-only signs were a mistake and had promised to erect additional Imperial signs, but campaigners went ahead and defaced the signs.

He said 'scores of authorities' had made similar errors and the DTLR should clarify the regulations which had produced a jumble of different weights and distance measures. 'It's a complete and utter mess,' he said.

A DTLR official said no major changes were planned in the regulations which are currently begin revised, although a new sign will be allowed that gives width restrictions in both metric and Imperial measurements.

'The regulations are quite clear,' he said. 'If local authorities misunderstand them, that's their fault isn't it'?