THREE inaccurate road signs for Perth and Kinross places have sparked confusion and concern.
Two of the signs have misspellings while another claims a Perthshire village has moved four miles closer than it actually is.
The latest sign blunder appeared on one of Scotland’s main trunk roads – the A9 – this month.
Highland Perthshire SNP councillor Mike Williamson could not believe his eyes when he saw the huge new sign erected at the side of the A9. The gigantic green signs directs drivers off the A9 to “Ballinguig” rather than Ballinluig. Great care has however been taken to add the correct Gaelic spelling of the village as “Baile an Luig”.
Bailie Williamson said: “When I first saw the pictures on social media I thought that it was a delayed April Fool’s joke.
“It goes to show we can all make mistakes, but some are a bit more embarrassing.
“The new sign has created a plenty of comments on social media and caused a lot of amusement locally.”
BEAR Scotland – who installed the sign – is now working to replace it.
A BEAR Scotland spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, during the manufacturing process a spelling mistake was made. This has been raised with our supplier and they are making arrangements for a replacement to be made as soon as possible.
“Removing it in the meantime would have left the slip road without a direction sign, so for safety reasons the sign with the erroneous spelling has been left in place, to make sure unfamiliar road users looking for Aberfeldy are able to find their destinations as well as being aware of the approaching slip road.”
Meanwhile a road sign in Perthshire’s Carse of Gowrie has left locals there scratching their heads in confusion.
The sign which sits just outside Errol at the junction for the road heading towards Errol Station claims Invergowrie is just four miles away.
Invergowrie is in fact eight miles away – twice as far. The Carse of Gowrie village of Inchture, however, is four miles along the road.
And to make matters worse it seems a previous sign had the same error and was then replaced with the same misinformation.
Errol resident Roger Humphry told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The previous sign used to say it was four miles to Invergowrie.”
He added: “The sign was replaced in the last couple of years and the erroneous distance has been faithfully copied onto the new sign.
“If the Carse of Gowrie ever had a land invasion then perhaps this decoy would help make life marginally more confusing for the invaders.”
Perth and Kinross Council – which had not received any complaints about the sign – has apologised for the error.
A Perth and Kinross Council spokesperson said: “We would apologise for any confusion resulting from the incorrect information on this road sign which had been installed as a replacement after the previous sign – in place since at least 2009 – was damaged.
“We have not received any complaints about the sign. We can further confirm that we have already instructed a contractor to replace the current sign with a new one as soon as possible to ensure that the mileage listed is accurate for road users.”
And over in Dundee drivers have spent the past year being directed to “CoupEr Angus” rather than Coupar Angus. The double-sided misspelled sign sits on Dundee’s East Dock Street at the junction to the city’s East Marketgait.
Dundee City Council was unaware of the error.
A spokesperson for Dundee City Council said: “Officers had not previously been made aware of this and no complaints had been received.”
