New clause 3
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He does the Committee a service in bringing the issue of road signs to our attention.
Again, the problem affects not only areas of high landscape value, important conservation areas, areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks; there is a general trend throughout the country for more and more signs to be erected on our highways. The problem is that with more and more legislation, highways authorities are trying to cover every eventuality. Not only that, they are advertising commercial interests by erecting so-called brown signs. There is a proliferation of brown signs, which are supposed to be guides for tourists—that is how authorities get round it—but in fact they are advertising commercial ventures.
Highways authorities and the Government used to have the philosophy that only those signs that were absolutely necessary in the interests of highway safety were to be erected and that every other sign was to be resisted. I represent a constituency that is about 80 per cent. covered by areas of outstanding beauty and yet I have a proliferation of such signs. Not only is there the argument advanced by my hon. Friend that they are unsightly, which they certainly are, but there is also an issue of safety. The more signs there are, the more likely it is that the motorist will ignore the sign that is really important because his mind will be so focused on other signs that he will not focus on the one that is really important.