TRAFFIC SIGNS (NORTH-EAST HAMPSHIRE) (Hansard, 28 February 1968)

§ Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)
I am glad to have the opportunity to raise the question of the new signposting in North-East Hampshire. Many of my constituents have written to me about it.
I propose only to deal with the signposting on non-trunk roads. The signs have been put up following the Report of the Worboys Committee, which was appointed in December, 1961, and reported on 18th April, 1963. Some time last year it was decided that an experiment in the placing of the signs should be carried out in North-East Hampshire as a pilot scheme. In particular, this was done in the attractive country around Hartley Wintney. The placing of the signs has been done in accordance with the recommendations of the Report. But unfortunately due attention has not been paid to the numerous variations of roads and houses jutting on to them, and this 1718 does not lend itself to the complete harmony which is one of the aims of the Report's recommendations.
For example, attractive almshouses have been blocked by a large sign which is hardly necessary to be so large and people some distance away down the road are prevented from seeing them. Elsewhere, two rather lovely old cottages are to a large extent hidden by another large sign. In front of a scheduled historic building there are signs 9 to 10 feet high, interfering with the visual pleasure that results from looking at a rather lovely old house.
The next problem is the very considerable numbers of signs on each stretch of road, for example, from Fleet to Pye-stock. In a distance of 2½ miles there are seven signs, all indicating Pyestock. It should be pointed out that these signs are fixed on metal poles, and it is desirable to mention the number of poles within a comparatively short area. In the village of Mattingley there are 22 poles within 100 yards. In Phoenix Green, near to Hartley Wintney, there are 14 poles within 50 yards, and at Hartley Wintney there are 56 poles in the village. To be fair those poles are partially on the trunk road A.30. There is a danger in these poles, in that they are sometimes placed on unlighted footpaths, and there have been pedestrians walking into the poles at night. There are many other cases of that type of thing, indicating a lack of appreciation of the difficulties for the individual in the district.
A most amusing thing is a sign saying "Crookham Village ½ mile "and five feet nearer Crookham there is another sign saying" Crookham Village". That is making assurance doubly sure, even if the distance is inaccurate. I do not blame the county or local authorities, because they are carrying out the Worboys Committee's recommendations, which do not have regard mainly to the nature of the surrounding country, but mostly to the roads. It would be unfair and unreasonable to blame the local authorities.
Let me give an example of the sort of thing that happens. At a "T" junction with a minor road there was a signpost, clearly showing the name of the hamlet, down the smaller road. On the smaller road two new signs have been erected, one either side, a foot down 1719 the road both bearing the same name, but not visible to the oncoming motorist in the same way as the ordinary wooden simple sign was, which stuck out clearly. These signs are expensive. In one or two cases a sign saying "Give way" is put up at the end of a small road with a dozen houses in the place of the usual double white line on the road which is sufficient for warning the motorist that he is coming to the main road.
I understand that the local planning authorities have not been approached to give authority for the erection of signs, but consideration should be given to whether they should be taken into consultation before the signs are erected.
That brings me to the point of cost, which is very serious, because in the small area of Hampshire about which I have been talking the cost of signposting with metal poles and on the lines I have indicated is £ 166,000, which comes to a very considerable figure taking the country as a whole. I should indicate the cost of these signs. The large informative sign is between £ 200 and £ 500. The small informative sign, including posts and lighting, is £ 100 to £ 300. A flag sign at a junction is £ 15 to £ 150. A warning sign is £ 28 to £ 50. I doubt whether we can afford this expenditure in the sense that it is not in a number of cases necessary over the whole country.
It is to be hoped that the cuts amounting to 22 per cent. of the programme of county road authorities include cuts referring to the Worboys experiment. The cuts should certainly include substantial cuts the work of signposting, on the lines of those recommendations.
My requests to the Parliamentary Secretary are these. Can signs be inspected at an early date so that some of the points I have raised may be dealt with? Can unsatisfactory signs be adjusted or removed? Can local planning authorities be consulted? In view of the large sums involved, can this programme be postponed until the financial condition of the country is much better?

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neil Carmichael)
I am glad that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) 1720 has raised this matter, although I should have wished that it had been raised considerably earlier when perhaps we would all have been a bit fresher. A number of comments have been made to my Department and to the Press about the new traffic signs. Not all of them are in support of the signs, but many of them are. This debate gives me an opportunity to set the record straight.
I should like to go into the general background of traffic signs. As the hon. Gentleman said, the new signs have come about as a direct result of the deliberations of the Worboys Committee set up in 1961 by the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples). Its Report was published in 1963. The Committee was set up to study traffic signs generally.
There were many complaints about the old traffic signs and the Report made a number of recommendations concerning design, colour, letter heights, and so on, and said that our system of signs should be brought into line with European signs. It was important that there should be co-ordination between our signs and those of Europe, not only because of our closer links with the Continent but because more and more people from this country go on holiday across the Channel with their cars and, in addition, we are getting an increasing number of foreign visitors. We felt that standardisation in the best way possible had become an urgent matter.
The Committee was fully aware that to increase the numbers and conspicuousness of our traffic signs in the interests of safety of road users might involve some loss of amenity and, therefore, paid particular attention to this aspect when considering the signs. The Committee felt it necessary to ensure that road users got the message of what the signs were trying to convey yet, at the same time, that the message did not intrude more than was absolutely necessary.
In justice to Sir Walter Worboys and his colleagues, I must emphasise that they exercised the greatest care in this respect. Mr. Jock Kinnear, an industrial designer, and others worked on the signs and put in a great deal of effort. Many examples of signs were drawn up for examination and study. Of the quality of the signs and the amount of effort 1721 that was put into the work, it is interesting to note that uniquely a Duke of Edinburgh Award for industrial design was mace for the signs. The highest accolade in industrial design was thus accorded to these signs from the purely aesthetic point of view as individual signs, quite apart from the impact which they may have on any locality.
The Worboys Report was generally accepted by the right hon. Member for Wallasey and the present Traffic Signs Regulations were issued. To ensure uniformity, highway authorities need much advice on the correct size and use of signs in certain circumstances, and to support the Regulations a traffic signs manual has been issued. I would, I believe, carry the hon. Member with me in saying that there had to be general uniformity throughout the country in the application an positioning of signs and certain standards towards achieving that uniformity so that the motorist would be familiar with the positioning of signs and their meaning when he saw them in position.
The traffic signs manual is the product of painstaking work on the part of the staff of the Department, who are highly skilled at traffic engineering techniques and the employment of traffic signs. They are real experts in the field. Those who have compiled the manual have concerned themselves with the problem of amenity as well as road safety, in the same way as did the Worboys Committee.
I am glad to say that they are not solely concerned with road safety and with helping motorists. They do not wart to despoil the countryside any more than those who complain at the appearance of the signs. They are, however, concerned, as is my right hon. Friend the Minister, that the safety of all road users shall be protected as far as their skills allow.
Obviously, to convert all our traffic signing to what, I confidently assert, is an extremely efficient system is a very long process. It is also—here I agree with the hon. Gentleman—an extremely expensive process. The hon. Gentleman raised the question of cost and perhaps I could deal with that now. No doubt these signs are costly, because they are meant to endure, and because they are made to 1722 be seen in a way totally different from the older signs with which we were familiar, because motor cars go much faster, and there are more of them on the road and there tends to be less time for the motorist to examine things, and the road signs must make an immediate impact, so they must be made of material which is more expensive. Many must be illuminated because of their position. It is a costly business to erect these signs. This is one of the reasons why the programme as a whole has perhaps not been as fast as we would have liked, because of the problem of finance, both for the Ministry and for the local highway authorities.
So a timetable was set. All the regulatory signs had to be completed by the end of last year, and shortly my right hon. Friend hopes to make regulations fixing the dates by which all the permanent signs on primary routes should be completed. In the meantime—and this is where the area of North-East Hampshire to which the hon. Member referred comes into it—it was thought that it would be useful for the highway authorities all over the country to see a part of the country where all the signs were completed. We selected North-East Hampshire as the demonstration area.
For various reasons this task has taken longer than we anticipated, but I should like to say how grateful we are to Hampshire County Council and Farnborough and Fleet Urban District Councils for their very helpful co-operation. Those local authorities had to exert a considerable effort in this task.
Now that this first area is complete, we are being assailed on all sides with accusations that there are too many signs, that they are too big, that they are ruining the amenity of the area. Without being too dogmatic about it, I find this difficult to accept. Members of the Ministry of Transport have worked with the local authorities on this and have inspected the results, and the signs have been erected in accordance with the traffic signs manual. The work which has been done in this area, which has been well served, is excellent. Other local authorities will have to complete their work in the next few years.
But we would be the first to admit that there are lessons to be learned from the part already signposted. Now that 1723 we can see the area with the signs complete it is right that we should look at it as a whole to see whether we can make any changes. There are a number of things which we believe could be reviewed. For example, we propose to examine again the criteria of the size of the signs in relation to actual road speeds rather than the criteria of the road. We particularly propose to review the need for advance local direction signs, the need for either more or less advanced local direction signs, and there are a number of other things.

§ Sir E. Errington
Would the hon. Gentleman say whether he is prepared to consult the local people in some form or another, because I think the feeling which has caused a great deal of the trouble has been that this was done with no discussion other than with the county council?

§ Mr. Carmichael
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the agent of the Ministry in all these cases is the county council, and the Ministry feels that there is an obligation, when it is approaching things like this, that it should be through the county council that any consultations should take place. Without becoming too involved, perhaps I could say that I certainly take the hon. Gentleman's point. I am aware of the point he is raising, and I will certainly pass it on.
As I was saying, we have digested a number of complaints as they have come in. We will examine the detailed points raised by the hon. Gentleman in the debate and give them serious study. There is nothing cut and dried, nor are our minds made up completely, although we are convinced that the basic principle is correct and we would not depart from the fundamental principles in the area that has been signposted.
In the general context of the re-signing of the whole of Britain which will take place over the next 10 years, we think that the residents of North-East Hampshire should feel gratified, just as they did when theirs was one of the first areas 1724 in the country to be issued with free signs by the Royal Automobile Association. But that was a different age, especially on the roads.
Before almost any other area, theirs will be the best signed part of the country. If they feel that this traffic signing is being overdone, they must remember that we are living in an age of very fast motorcars. Unashamedly, we are concerned primarily with the heavy death roll and the number of accident casualties on our roads. Road safety must take precedence even over amenity, although no one would wish to destroy amenity unnecessarily.
If there is a clash between the two interests, surely road safety should come first, provided that we try to avoid adverse effects on amenity to the best of our ability. In all good faith, the Ministry and the local authorities try to do this. It comes down ultimately to the fact that it is no good giving overriding priority to the protection of amenity if the death or injury roll is such that a large number of citizens are not able to enjoy the amenities which we are trying to preserve for them. This is one of the difficulties overtaking us in matters of road safety.
The hon. Gentleman raised a number of specific points, including examples of houses that were unnecessarily baulked by large signs and cottages and scheduled historic buildings that were hidden. He also asked if there was to be an inspection of this area. There has been an inspection, but there will be a fuller one when the signing is complete. I can assure him that there is no desire on the part of the Ministry or the county council stubbornly to stick to anything which is obviously wrong. We want these signs to be a success, in terms of road safety, in terms of amenity, and in terms of acceptability.