The scene at the Millstone Lane - Crewe Road junction since the end of July 2009. No road signs except two new ones marking the refurbished pedestrian island. This is the corner where signs were constantly turned round by vandals, and one was sprayed with paint.

NEVER mind strange signs, any drivers who followed the sign (left) to Crewe along Millstone Lane from July 2009 onwards would have found  themselves utterly lost. There are NO road signs further along the street.

   But, as of mid-September, that isn't a problem as this sign has also been removed (See Part 1 of this letter).

   A road sign which was three quarters of the way along Millstone Lane, which pointed to everywhere but Crewe, is missing, as are all signs at the Crewe Road - Millstone Lane junction (above). Nor are there any signs pointing to Stone (A51) and other locations at the Churche's Mansion roundabout a little further on. The last time I looked, there was one sign to Whitchurch and Audlem by the roundabout. But that was all.

   I had thought it was a temporary measure as part of the signage renewal programme. But the signs are not being replaced!  

   Drivers from out of town are not meant to be on these roads in the first place - if they have been following earlier signs properly - and so, it would seem, don't need to be told where Crewe, for instance, is located. (It's first left, by the way). Let's hope that supermarkets, hospitals, etc, won't follow the same illogical thinking. What about sign

makers, too? They cannot be happy about the latest situation on the roads. You can still drop off to see Nantwich as these roads still have signs to car parks, but getting out of town  again to travel to your next destination might be a problem..

   Leave the Waterlode car park and a sign sends you to the left to "Crewe (A532)", but the next sign sends you to the right, to "Crewe (A5020)" when Crewe via the A532 is straight on. If only you knew it.  

A MEMBER of staff in Cheshire East Council highways department told me it was all to do with the reclassification of Millstone Lane from an A road to a B road. It seems that B roads don't have road signs!

   Beam Street is also devoid of signs - apart from car park signs. The man at Cheshire East didn't mention that had been reclassified, but I was asking about Millstone Lane.

  The only signs now remaining in some areas of town are those pointing to car parks, or indicating roundabouts and pedestrian islands. 

  The idea is to get cars and lorries not to use certain roads in Nantwich, apparently.

  Millstone Lane has a problem with cars parked along some stretches because the owners aren't able to gain access to the rear of their property to park.

   They could create a car-parking space in front of their house, but that would mean them losing their garden, and backing in or out (you have to do it one way or the other) would be tricky on what is not an over-wideroad. The move also keeps vehicles out of Hospital Street, scene of a double fatality in recent years.

   Millstone Lane is a bus route and so it can be tricky driving along it, and lorries use it, too.

   The trouble is that drivers do make mistakes, try as they might, and some will find themselves driving along Millstone Lane to get to Crewe. With no road signs to help them, one option is to turn round and start again - using the road a second time. The idea isn't working.    

   Visitors to Nantwich are not stupid. They will soon realise they are being sent on a wild goose chase and will avoid the town like the plague. That will cut down on the need for car parks, and then the car park signs needn't be replaced. You can see how it works.

lActually, the man from the council also said: "That's not to say that at some stage there won't be new signs coming back." But local authorities don't usually go back on something they have done - unless there is a huge public outcry. . .

The "preferred" route? Who says so? 

CREDIT where it is due, I wasn't the one who found out that the signs weren't coming back. In a letter in The Nantwich Chronicle of August 12, Wellington Road campaigner Rachel Shenton drew the attention of the readers to the fact that the start of affairs was permanent.

   She had been speaking to someone she referred to as "our highways man" who told her the lack of signs to Crewe in Millstone Lane was because "the 

preferred route" was down Hospital Street, Pratchitt's Row, Wellington Road, Audlem Road, Peter de Stapleigh Way, Ellwood Road and Newcastle Road. In other words, the "round the houses" route mentioned above 

   As Rachel asked: "Whose preferred route?"

   Funny how the preferred route from Millstone Lane includes part of Hospital Street and yet that from the town centre (car parks and some

access to shops) doesn't. Is that street being protected from vehicles or not?

l In the same edition of The Chronicle, there is a report that "hundreds of illegal and redundant" road signs, from Audlem in the South of the half county and Poynton in the north, have been "binned by the skipful". There are more than a few of ours in the dead road signs depot at Wardle, near Nantwich.

The earlier letter on this subject | The road where measures were taken to keep lorries away | The letters index | Website index page