What happens when street signs go wrong

People living in Worcester were left bemused this week when a motorway sign renamed their city "Worchester", but there is a long history of road signs going wrong.

Who could forget this classic from 2008, when Swansea Council wanted a "No Heavy Goods Vehicles" sign translated into Welsh.

Unfortunately their translator was not available that day and when the email response was painted on to the sign it read (in Welsh): "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

Here are some other examples which have caught your attention over the years.

Perhaps the most common, and understandable, mistakes involve simple spelling errors.

Residents in Carlisle felt shortchanged two years ago when banners promoting a local gallery and museum had a letter "l" missing.

The flags read: "Welcome to Carlise" and "We Love you Carlise We Do".

The museum replaced the banners and said the "days of Carlise are numbered".

The letter L was also an issue in 2015.

Nottingham Express Transport had to apologise after a Chilwell Road sign on the city's new £570m tram extension gained a letter "l" to make it Chillwell Road.

The following year, North Warwickshire Police had to get one of its vans repainted after a map painted on the side spelt two local towns incorrectly.

Policing North Warwickshire later tweeted: "For Sale: 2016 mobile police station, 187 miles, slight artwork issue...."

In 2011, a road sign for Gilroes Cemetery in Leicester had to be repainted when it incorrectly spelt it Gilrose Cemetery.

Leicester City Council said the error was "cheap to put right".

People saw the funny side when a road sign to Witney in Oxfordshire gained an "h" to make it Whitney in 2018.

People joked on social media that it might have been a tribute to the singer Whitney Houston, with one person writing "Houston... we have a problem".

Doncaster Council had to hold its hands up in 2021 when it accidentally claimed a Lincolnshire village for Yorkshire.

Sandtoft got a sign that read "Welcome to Yorkshire", but local residents suggested the elegant solution was simply to turn the sign around, so it welcomed people to Yorkshire as they left the village, rather than when they entered it.

But East Riding of Yorkshire Council did not back down in 2025 when Short Lane in Bridlington was renamed Shorter Lane.

Residents complained, but the authority said the name was logged as Shorter Lane in the National Street Gazetteer.

It also pointed out there was another Short Lane in the town and it said having two could be confusing.

Spelling mistakes are not the only street-sign errors to get people's attention.

Sometimes road markings also raise a smile.

In May, Stoke-on-Trent City Council was left red-faced when "school keep clear" markings were painted on Greendock Street in Longton.

The problem was there had not been a school there for 15 years.

People living in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, also had a good laugh when a contractor decided to have a go at painting a bicycle freehand.

The angular shapes and unusually large back wheel encouraged some to joke it looked like a penny farthing or a maybe a vehicle from The Flintstones.

Elsewhere, motorists in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, were left confused when new road markings appeared to direct them into the exit from a petrol station.

There was similar confusion on the A34 in Oxfordshire in March when road markings labelled some lanes incorrectly, forcing some motorists to swiftly change lanes when they realised they were going the wrong way.

A "contractor having a bad day" was the reason given for a road marking in Staffordshire directing motorists to the "nouth" in 2015.

Sometimes surprising street signs are nothing to do with errors and are instead the work of pranksters.

In 2018, five signs along the A4130 in Oxfordshire were altered to direct people to places including Narnia, Middle Earth and Gotham City.

A few years later a "Welcome to Hull" sign had the words "We know we aren't perfect, but at least we're not Leeds" added in smaller lettering underneath.

Ironically, schools and universities seem to feature regularly in stories about street signs too.

The University of Nottingham was renamed the Univeristy of Nottingham on one sign in 2016 and The Pingle Academy, in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, accidentally congratulated its pupils for record breaking GSCE results in 2019.

Grammar schools also appear to cause problems.

Loughborough Grammar School and Lancaster Royal Grammar School have both had signs labelling them grammer schools.

Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.