One wonders if drivers, visiting the Sarisbury Green shops, will feel any safer now that the council has installed not one, but seven one way signs, all in a space about the size of a cricket pitch (see attached pictures).

Perhaps I’m alone in thinking that this is overkill and a completely unnecessary waste of resources.

One has to question the logic, indeed if there is any logic for this waste of our taxes.

At a time when the country is weighed down by debt and the urgent need to cut government spending, might I suggest that we the tax payers would be well served by the removal from post, of whom ever approved this ridiculous expenditure.

I defend the use of the word ridiculous, but perhaps inconsistent might be equally applied. I applauded the installation of an automated 30 MPH sign on the A27 just down hill from Sarisbury Green (to the west) where the road increases to two lanes up hill and one down hill. Alas a very temporary installation.

This section of the A27 is notorious for speeding, yet apart from a short 6 week period when the automated sign was installed, the council are “unable” to implement any traffic calming measures or indeed even 30MPH speed limit signs, because motorists are supposed to acknowledge the spacing of street lights as indication of the speed limit.

Are we to believe then, that those very same motorists lose all notion of road sense once they reach Sarisbury Green and they need not one, but three signs telling them to keep to the left of the carriageway?

Before anyone counters my argument, saying that these are central government requirements, let me say that is not an acceptable response. I have driven through many restricted areas where traffic-calming measures are used in built up areas. An excellent example is Lyndhurst, where the council have installed “THINK, 30MPH – Please Drive Slowly” which anecdotally is very successful.

Seven of those  "Think" signs placed along the A27 might have been an acceptable and better use of our taxes.

As with all these things the devil is in the detail. The challenge to our elected representatives is not only implementation of the £6b or so of cuts, but preventing wasteful expenditure on this scale, the accumulated sum of which is equally vast.

Do others have an opinion?

Many thanks to Bursledon Blog for submitting this story.