TWO local politicians have taken a hands-on approach on the issue of dirty street signs in Bangor – by cleaning the signs themselves.
North Down MLA Peter Martin and his DUP colleague, councillor Alistair Cathcart cleaned a number of road directional and street signs throughout the city.
Explaining the reasoning behind their actions, Mr Martin said: “The state of road signs is a real bugbear of mine; they have been allowed to get into such a dirty state that many are now unreadable, including signs stating what the parking restrictions are, hardly helpful for any visitor.
“I am not alone with this; I have been contacted by many constituents fed up about this, not just dirty signs, but missing and wonky signs.”
The Assemblyman said he had raised the issue with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), which has responsibility for directional signs, but with a limited budget, the issue of broken or dirty signs is a low priority.
He confirmed he would ‘continue to push the Infrastructure Minister on this issue until the department is able to do this work themselves’.
Mr Martin continued: “However, with Stormont in recess, I thought I would use this opportunity to have a more hands on approach to tackling this and get out and clean the signs myself. I have also reported a number of other road signs that are too high up for me to reach,” adding he would also engage with Ards and North Down Council, which is responsible for smaller street signs, to ensure a cleaning system is in place.
Bangor Central councillor Cathcart said he was ‘delighted’ to join Mr Martin in the clean up operation, adding: “It sounds like a minor issue but dirty signs really bring down the look of a place, [which] has been raised by so many residents. When it is raised with DfI Roads they state it is low priority and frankly they don’t have the funding to do it.”
