Contractors paint ‘SL’ on Suffolk road – but not ‘OW’ because it is outside ‘permitted area’

Road sign, Sand Hill, Boxford. Picture: DAVID LAMMING

There’s an ‘L’ of a lot of confusion in Boxford at the moment as UK Power Networks claims it can only paint the first two letters of the word ‘SLOW’ on the road as the remainder is outside its “permitted area”.

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Road sign, Sand Hill, Boxford. Picture: DAVID LAMMING Road sign, Sand Hill, Boxford. Picture: DAVID LAMMING

The energy company has said it is unable to complete painting the word “slow” on a Boxford road, despite already repainting the ‘SL’, as the ‘OW’ are “outside the permitted area”.

• See update here

UK Power Networks and Suffolk County Council have already been accused by resident David Lamming of a “lack of joined-up thinking” over the mix-up, which has seen the word only partially completed on Sand Hill.

When asked why only ‘SL’ had been painted, a UK Power Networks spokeswoman said: “Contractors working on behalf of UK Power Networks resurfaced part of the road, including the road markings on the new surface.

“The remainder of the road markings, ie the remainder of the word ‘SLOW’, were outside the area we were permitted to remedy by the county council.”

A spokesman from Suffolk County Council indicated they would have expected the energy company to complete the repainting work while they were there.

“Regardless of whether we get UK Power Networks to go back and correct that defect, or do it ourselves, we will look to get that sorted,” he said.

And there has been further confusion as a picture taken on February 20 shows that the ‘SL’ had been painted, but less than a month later, the ‘S’ remains intact while the ‘L’ has almost entirely vanished.

Mr Lamming questioned why the ‘L’ had vanished so quickly and whether someone had removed it as it was outside the permitted area.

UK Power Networks denied the ‘L’ was removed by any of their employees or contractors.

The confusion comes after UK Power Networks laid down electrical cabling to a new housing development in September last year.

After it was initially completed, Mr Lamming said the company then needed to return to redo the surfacing work.

In a letter to this newspaper, Mr Lamming said: “A question readers might reasonably ask is what would it have cost the contractors to repaint the full word ‘SLOW’?

This latest road sign error comes after another mix-up with the word ‘SLOW’ a couple of years ago on a Suffolk road.

In 2014, workers intended to write ‘SLOW’ in Risby, near Bury St Edmunds, but instead wrote ‘SLOM’ after getting the letter ‘W’ upside down.