Research carried out during the past week revealed the following signs either in metric or Britsh units from Southbourne, Bournemouth to Sandbanks, Poole, 7 miles of wonderful promendae:
YARDS - two signs only (both private rather than official)
"SWIMMING MORE THAN 20 METRES FROM THE PROMENADE..." (Notice to bathers, near Bistro, Southbourne promenade)
"The area between these two signs including beach and extending 200 metres out to sea has been designated an official water sports zone" (2 large signs about 200 yards east of Bournemouth pier)
"Dog exercise area 340m" (x 2)(near West Cliff Zig Zag)
"First Aid Centre 250m" (x 2) and "Disabled Toilets 250m" (x 2)(near West Cliff Zig Zag)
"Smoke Free Zone 140m" (x 2) (near West Cliff Zig Zag)
"Waves 15m" (x 2) (near West Cliff Zig Zag)
"Dog exercise area 200m" (x 2), "Tourist Inforation 95m"(x 2), "First Aid Centre 95m" (x 2), "Disabled Toilets 95m" (x 2) (half way between Pier and Durley Chine)
"Welcome to Durley Chine Beach: Toilets 100m: Smoke Free Zone 130m" (Durley Chine)
"Tourist Information 200m" (x 2), "First Aid Centre 250m" (x 2) and "Toilets 250m" (x 2) (east of Middle Chine)
"Smoke Feee Zone 370m" (x 2) and "Waves 240m" (x 2) (at Middle Chine)
Now moving into Poole Borough...
"Toilets 60 metres" (x 2) (Branksome Dene Chine)
"Beach Zoning...Boats restricted to 92.30 metres (300 feet) from the low water mark; 8 Nautical Miles [per hour] speed limit..." (Branksome Chine Notice)
"Toilets 300 metres" (between Branksome Chine and Canford Cliffs beach)
"Eastward of this point is a restricted local channel...the seashore for a distace of 98.46 metres (320 feet) is a deristricted local channel" (Notice between Canford Cliffs beach and Sandbanks)
"Toilet 100 metres" (west of Canford Cliffs)
"5 feet of extra sand over a 30-metre wide area ('Saving Sandbanks for the Future' Notice, Sandbanks)
And finally, a notice at Sandbanks beach advertising the Dolphin Shopping Centre, Poole: "Best Choice in top name shopping for miles around".
Excluding the last notice, but counting all 'double' signs as two signs, promenaders can see:
Bournemouth promenade:
2 Britsh distances
33 metric distances
Poole promenade
1 British distance
6 metric distances
TOTALS: British - 3 (7%)
Metric - 39 (93%).
NOTE: Two earlier Poole metric signs to toilets in the Sandbanks/Canford Cliffs area were removed by a Poole 'Signswatch' group, thus the number of metric signs on Poole Borough promenade has been reduced from 8 to 6.
Nine metric distances along the Durley Chine part of Bournemouth promenade are now in Imperial. The direct action operative who carried out the amendments at around 11pm-midnight reports that those emerging from the beach-side pub at the Chine, wondering what was going on, were all in favour of the amendments, though the comments were slightly slurred, I understand.