Signing off, the fake airport prank that lasted decades

A PRANKSTER who spent £25,000 on a fake airport sign in rural Wales is ending the joke after 20 years.

The road sign for an imaginary “Llandegley International” airport has been a landmark near Llandegley village in Powys for the past two decades.

But Nicholas Whitehead, former editor of the Radnor edition of the Brecon and Radnor Express, yesterday said it was time to take down the sign he had spent thousands to erect and maintain.

It has been directing unwary motorists travelling east along the A44 to Terminals 1 and 3 of the fictional airport since 2002.

Mr Whitehead told the BBC: “It started off as a wild conversation with friends ... we thought of renting a sign for something that wasn’t really there, possibly a project that didn’t exist, and we settled on the airport.”

It has cost around £1,500 per year to maintain the billboard and after paying more than £25,000, Mr Whitehead said Llandegley International had become enough of a “national treasure” for the Welsh Government’s heritage body, Cadw, to take over its signage.