Council racks up 'obscene' £153,000 bill for FOUR brown roadside signs advertising tourist attractions

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Critics have slammed as 'obscene' the £153,000 cost of putting up four tourist information signs. 

The signs will be put up at junction 27 on the A55 in Wales to advertise Rhuddlan Castle, Denbigh Castle and St Asaph Cathedral in Denbighshire, Wales. 

The local authority will pick up the £23,000 design charge, and the rest - £130,000 - will be paid by the operators of the sites and community councils.

The £130,000 will cover making the signs and their installation, traffic management and safety barriers, a report to go before Denbighshire council states. Pictured: A mocked up photo of how the signs might look when they are completed

The £130,000 will cover making the signs and their installation, traffic management and safety barriers, a report to go before Denbighshire council states.

Cllr Mark Young, who runs a business in Denbigh, said: 'I would be astonished if that is the cost of these signs. Are they gold plated? 

'Any fair-minded person would question the cost of this.'

Cllr Merfyn Parry added: 'The problem with these signs has always been the ridiculous charge because it's handled by the Welsh Government. 

'How anyone could justify the cost of that is beyond me. And they expect us to pay for it - it's obscene.'

The report states: 'Tourist direction signing schemes are generally expensive when they include signs on high-speed trunk roads such as the A55.

'One of the main reasons for this is the sheer size of signs that are required in order that they can be read by drivers at a sufficient distance away.

'The costs of signs also include the costs of the posts, foundations, temporary traffic management (e.g. cones) and, often, safety barriers.'

There have been discussions about the possibility of erecting these signs for several years, but Welsh Government rules made this difficult.

According to the rules, any site appearing on a brown sign would have to be within 10 miles of a trunk road and have more than 60,000 visitors a year.

The signs will be put up at junction 27 on the A55 in Wales to advertise Rhuddlan Castle, Denbigh Castle and St Asaph Cathedral(pictured) in Denbighshire, Wales

But a way around the rules was found by grouping the attractions together so that they had the number of visitors required to allow them to go ahead.

Cllr Williams added: 'I sat in my first meeting about putting these type of signs up for the Vale of Clwyd 20 years ago.

'It has dragged on so long I think the Welsh Government should pay for the whole thing as an apology to the people and businesses of the Vale.'

The mayor of St Asaph, Colin Hardie, said it would not be possible for the city council to contribute to such a high bill.

'I have no idea why it's so high,' he added. 'We were utterly shocked when they told us what the cost would be - we're just talking about a couple of signs to advertise three communities.

'We in St Asaph do not have that type of money for these signs.'

A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: 'Although we will facilitate Denbighshire in installing the signs on the A55 trunk road, Welsh Government Transport have had no input into developing the estimate quoted in the report.'

Denbighshire council were also asked for a comment yesterday.