Chippenham's sign of the times (From This Is Wiltshire)

Chippenham's sign of the times

7:00am Sunday 22nd November 2009

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Nearly eight months after the Wiltshire Council was born, Chippenham has finally been moved into its rightful county.

Since April, the town has unknowingly belonged to the county of Witlshire thanks to a mis-spelled sign at the entrance to the council offices in Monkton Park.

Secretary of the Chippenham Civic Society, Roger Backway, of Old Hardenhuish Lane, spotted the error several months ago, and is surprised nobody else pointed it out.

He said: “I pointed it out months ago, but nothing was done about it until recently.

“They must have literally changed it within the past two weeks when they received a copy of our Civic Society newsletter, which highlighted it.

“At least it shows we have had some effect.”

He said: “I suppose it is one of those things that people walk past and do not notice.”

Mr Backway is more used to campaigning to improve the look of the town’s buildings than correcting spelling mistakes.

He said: “I have not noticed anything this funny before. I was tempted to report it to Private Eye.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: “Around 1,000 vehicles and front-facing buildings were rebranded when the unitary authority came into being and this is the only mistake we have been made aware of.

“To keep the costs down we stuck new signs over the old ones and this is one of those.

“It was pointed out to us and now it has been rectified with a new sticky sign over the top.”

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