Gosport Borough Council to replace 6 metric road signs

This report comes from John Bowles, energetic anti-E.U. campaigner and UKIP candidate in the recent General Election. After many 'phone calls and letters, he eventually managed to persuade Gosport Borough Coucnil to replace six illegal metric road signs.

The news is reported in the very pro-E.U. 'Portsmouth News' under the heading: "Taxpayers foot £300 bill to tear down metric road signs".

Extracts from the report, published 29.6.2001 and accompanied by a photograph of an illegal road width sign (also on www.portsmouth.co.uk), follow:

"Gosport Borough Council is being forced to tear down six road signs after they were put up showing the wrong measurements.

"The signs - which all give vehicle width restrictions on roads in the borough - will be replaced over the next two months.

"The measurements they display are in metres only, breaching the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions Act [sic] 1994, which states they shoud be in feet.

"Now Gosport Borough Council will now have to pay out around £300 to replace the signs, which cost between £40 and £50 each.

"The moves come after campaigner John Bowles demanded that a sign in Privett Plavce should be replaced because it was illegal...The offending sign states that vehicles wider than two metres cannot use the road to gain access to Ann's Hill Road.

"Mr Bowles wrote to Gosport Borough Council saying the sign should be removed by July 12 or 'action will be taken to ensure its legality'.

"He said: 'The reason this campaign is being conducted is because the government is gradually imposing metrication on the country by the back door'.

"When asked what he would do if the sign was not removed or changed, Mr Bowles said: 'The sign will be made legal. That is all I am prepared to say'".

John Bowles can be contacted on: 023 92 352801.

This report via Tony Bennett, UKIP 'Guard the Yard' Campaign
Tel: 01279 635789