BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN

The drive from Gatwick Airport into the heart of the Surrey villages was a magnificent one. The network of winding country lanes from Charlwood across Dorking and through to the duck pond at Shamley Green were breath-taking on a summer’s day. So stunning that our usual taxi driver, Mr Ford – a driver of Vauxhalls – once told us that he drove the same route for an American tourist who enjoyed the ride so much that he asked him to go back to Gatwick and then repeat the journey all over again.

An age ago, one of school shorts and maroon blazers, it used to be that the ‘ducks crossing’ sign in Shamley Green was something of an idiosyncrasy and raised a chuckle; an oddity like farming llamas or sporting a cravat. Now Surrey’s rural lanes are replete with signs warning drivers to avoid hedgehogs, frogs and toads, even cyclists. Long gone are the days when I watched swearing joggers jump into ditches at the sight of my mother’s bull-bar. There are signs everywhere now and they litter rural lanes like Elastoplasts on the face of the Mona Lisa.

The drive from Shamley Green through to Shalford was a chance to fly through the gears -the sharp bends at Wonersh the only chicane where the driving instructor’s grasp of the door handle would noticeably tighten. Now there are cameras and warning signs everywhere. Far more signs even than the blue versus gold of General Election months. Bright, painted roads are ubiquitous – in the past painted dividing lines had faded into nature and you drove through the countryside as if off on one of Poirot’s rural adventures. Nowadays one may as well be in a scene from The Bill and there are as many warning signs painted into the road as stand alongside it.

Any road death – the roadkill of frogs, toads and ducks can be excepted – is a road death too many. Shamley Green was always a go-slow zone and for good reason as a neighbour’s daughter met a tragic demise there on that road. But who decides when an excess of signage is attained? At what point do these ‘Do Not’ signs become surplus nannying or worse, even a distraction for otherwise focused drivers?

Apparently the number of road signs has doubled in the last two decades, to over 4.3 million. As a result, the government is now telling local authorities to “reduce sign clutter”. The Department for Transport (DfT) in guidance to councils warns:

“The overuse of traffic signs blights the landscape, wastes taxpayers’ money and dilutes important safety-critical messages. Having too many signs can also distract drivers and increases the risks for road workers”

Judging by this part of Surrey’s dramatic change for the worse, this seems sound advice.

A few years ago, Edmund King, president of the AA, told The Times:

“You could get rid of about a third of signs, no problem. Actually, reducing the number of signs will help drivers and lead to less confusion.”

A sound man seems Edmund King.

It is hard not to see more than nannying in the signs that now so blight my old stamping ground – the place where I was privileged to grow up. I see something that is creeping across many parts of the UK, especially where devolution has occurred. I see a sloppy surplus of State. A surfeit of apparatchiks. Too many busybodies who think they must legislate and nanny because that is why they exist.

There are laws being created just for the sake of it by an overabundance of progressive lawmakers who think that this is their raison d’être. (Those who enforce these laws would be the first to agree). Along with each new raft of legislation comes a slew of apparatchiks and jobsworths, happy to live off the back of others’ fines and hiked council tax bills. Aside from the unnecessary costs, we members of the Great British Public are increasingly growing suspicious. For after cake and Covid “Do Not” seems more the speak of a freedom-grabbing overlord, not the scolding of a nanny or mother. From an aesthetic point of view these signs litter our cherished landscape – from a psychological point of view they cannot be easily interpreted as anything other than projection of dominance by the state. And that’s just not British.

We are not Austria where you cannot put your rubbish in a bin without seeing a sign warning you of the fine you will pay if you fail to obey state laws. We are Britain – a land of individuals, common law and freedom. We were never born to be tamed.

Lawmakers and busybodies are failing to remember that their duty is to conserve as well as reform. Littering beautiful areas with signs is wrong. 

The traffic camera placed near the junction to Albury seems to have been blown up by a local resident. The grim signs that warn of its presence – a garish mix of red, black and yellow – stand out like sore thumbs. The sign for eggs beside its honesty box remains – an optimistic beacon in a corner of Britain where those public servants defining progress have lost their bearings.

“Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly.” John Lennon

Dominic Wightman is Editor of Country Squire Magazine.