New clause 3
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
3:45 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I agree with that, too, but they have to be big enough. There is nothing more annoying than small road signs that one cannot read in a car until one is right next to them. That is equally unsafe because one is concentrating so hard on trying to read that road sign with small writing on it, one is not paying 100 per cent. attention to what is going on elsewhere on the road. The answer is to minimise the number of signs. Size is important, so that people can be aware of signs that are of critical importance, such as stop signs. A stop sign means stop; it does not mean a temporary slowing down—the wheels have to stop turning. One so often sees that stop signs are honoured more in the breach than in the observance.
My hon. Friend has done the Committee a service. I am not sure that his new clause is the solution. I am not sure that this is a planning matter. It is perhaps one that should not be dealt with in legislation.
However, we are coming on to discuss a plethora of RPGs and PPGs—supposedly to be renamed PPSs—and the correct solution might be that the matter should be dealt with through guidance to planning authorities and highways. I am not sure that primary legislation is the right vehicle because it is impossible to cater for every circumstance in primary legislation.