DURING the last three weeks the Gazette has published letters from Dr Glossop, Chris Walton and Dr Gray concerning unauthorised signs in the highway and how these are dealt with by the county council.

Signs placed in the highway which do not comply with the traffic signs regulations are unlawfully placed.

They are, in effect, illegal obstructions. The county council has a duty to remove obstructions in the highway.

In practice, county council highways staff are expected by the public to make judgements about "good" illegal signs (eg advertising a village fete) and "bad" illegal signs (eg advertising a rave) and treat them differently.

The law makes no such distinction.

We try to handle these dilemmas sensibly and fairly but we are only human and sometimes the public will judge that we have got it wrong. We seek to learn from these experiences.

The county council cannot "authorise" event organisers to act unlawfully and place illegal signs in the highway but we will always try to give the best advice that we can.

The correspondence about the actions of the county council may overshadow what could be a much more difficult issue.

In an increasingly litigious society, how long will it be before a simple "good", illegal sign is cited as a distraction and cause of a road accident.

It remains to be seen how in this situation the unwitting event organiser (who placed the illegal sign on the highway) and the county council (who failed to remove it) are treated by the civil or criminal courts.

RICHARD J LANDER

Director of

Environmental Services

Wiltshire County Council

County Hall, Trowbridge