An attractive black-and-gold 'finger-post' pedestrian sign can be found immediately south of Vauxhall BR Station, south London (on the junction of the A 203, A 202 and A 3204 (corner of South Lambeth Road and Harleyford Road). It is not known if there are others in the vicinity. I believe the London Borough of Lambeth will be the relevant local authority.

It gives the following information on both sides of five fingers:

'Kennington Park 1km - 15 mins'
'Oval House Theatre 400m - 7 mins'
'The Fosters Oval Ticket Office 450m - 8 mins'
'Vauxhall Park 300m - 5 mins'
'Kennington Cross Shopping and Restaurants 800m - 12 mins'.

As a matter of interest, the respective destinations would, according to these signs, require average walking speeds of:

Kennington Park - 2.5 mph
Oval House Theatre - 2.1 mph
The Fosters Oval Ticket office - 2.1 mph
Vauxhall Park - 2.2mph
Kennington Cross Shopping and Restaurants - 2.5mph.

COMMENT: This seems a particularly powerful effort to promote the metric system. Especially the idea that walking one kilometre takes 15 minutes. Since the campaign against metric traffic and pedestrian signs was launched by UKIP and BWMA last year, not one of these black-and-gold finger post signs has been replaced or amended by local authorities, despite one (Portsmouth) acknowledging that they are illegal. By contrast there has been much greater success for us with metric traffic signs for motorists.

All of us interested in preserving British distances on signposts _must_ now consider a practical way of _converting_ these signs to _our_ distances. This can best be done, I suggest, by ordering replacement metal signs (in this case 10 signs at 5 3/4" x 2", painting them black, putting permanent attractive white lettering on them with the distances in miles and yards, and affixing them on top of the metric distances with an effective epoxy resin or similar. But all of this will take time and money. How can this be found? Could individuals with a few bob to spare possibly sponsor a sign if someone else obtains the materials and does the job?

NOTE: I suggest the Imperial distances to be used to replace the metric distancess on these Vauxhall signs be, respectively:

2/3 mile
1/4 mile
500 yards
330 yards
1/2 mile.

Tony Bennett, UKIP

The sign in question was duly amended on Saturday 25 August, using metal plates 2.75 x 6.5 inches in size, painted in black metallic paint, and labelled up with Department of Transport-quality permanent reflective adhesive lettering. Photographs were taken by BWMA supporters.

The cost of the 10 plates necessary for this fingerpost sign, plus paint, industrial epoxy paste glue and lettering was around £30. This excludes transport costs.

During the day, _5_ similar black-and-gold fingerpost signs were noted in the vicinity, 3 near Vauxhall Station and another 2 around quarter-to-half-a-mile east of Vauxhall Station. There may well be many more in the Borough (Lambeth). The total cost of amending the 5 noted so far would be around another £150.

They do look nice - the lettering used is bright (reflective) white and really stands out.

Tony Bennett, UKIP

A seventh metric fingerpost sign has ben spotted, across the road from the southern end of Lambeth bridge. All the metric measurements on these signs have been noted and converted into British distances. Metal plates with the usual reflective white lettering on them are being prepared for a major demetrification effort there soon.

Tony Bennett, UKIP

A total of 40 double-sided finger signs on 9 fingerpost signs in the Vauxhall Station/Lambeth Bridge area of LB Lambeth have now been professionally converted to units of miles and yards using metal plates with reflective adhesive white lettering in attractive Times New Roman style. Two separate further 'raids' were needed to complete this exercise. Lambeth Council is aware of earlier raids, as the new signs were spotted by a local Councillor, but is taking no action to change them back to metric units.

Active Service Unit

After leaving ARM's nice Imperial signs in place for nearly a year, Lambeth Council committed an act of wanton vandalism during the past few weeks by bashing out all of the 70 or so neat plates we affixed with Imperial distances on them (which we had placed over the illegal metric distances last year - see previous posts). This destructive act was reported to us by a BWMA Committee member.

It is thought that this unfriendly and illegal action followed photos of one of Lambeth's signs 'before' and 'after' ARM's action appearing in the summer edition of 'This England', a patriotic magazine with a claimed readership of two million world wide [Note: photos taken another member of the BWMA].

Some new plates were affixed by the Council during the last few weeks with the old metric distances on them. Many of the others were left as they are but minus the plates - completely illegible due to the hardened white gunge which had previously held ARM's plates in position. But what does it matter to Lambeth Council so long as Britain's traditional measures are successfully obliterated?

ARM has responded recently by re-converting *all* the 70-odd distance signs back into Imperial units.

Surely Lambeth Borough Council won't try to render their signs illegal a third time - will they?


Tony Bennett