Dual signs on lorry-crunch bridge height of correctness

COUNCIL chiefs in Flintshire have done a U-turn over plans to scrap imperial units at a bridge under which European lorry drivers regularly get stuck.

Signs at the Penyffordd bridge had been in both metric and imperial units, but – reading 4.1m and 13ft – they didn’t match up.

So European lorry drivers who looked at the metric measurement thought they could fit under it.

But several got stuck as 13ft equals 3.96m, and one Polish HGV driver was fined last month over getting his wagon wedged.

The council had said it was now going to get rid of the old imperial signs altogether, and have corrected metric-only ones.

But after concerns were raised by the British Weights and Measures Association that the change would be illegal, the council said it would be putting up new, correct signs in both units.

The council’s highways department told the Daily Post initially it had “surveyed all of the low bridge signs in the county and will be replacing the dual imperial/metric information with metric only notifications”.

But the British Weights and Measures Association said that move was not allowed.

Warwick Cairns, the campaign group’s spokesman, said: “They probably think it’s the 21st century and everyone is using metric, but they’re wrong to use it.

“Existing imperial-only signs are allowed, but metric must be alongside imperial on new signs.

“The council have probably misinterpreted the move to metric to mean metric-only.

“You can have metric as a secondary measurement, but imperial has to be there.”

The council then revised position. its