A council is stripping roadsides of dozens of unnecessary traffic signs every year.

Brighton and Hove City Council removed around 130 signs, bollards and other items from Lewes Road as part of improvement works last year and are expecting a similar haul when improvement works are carried out around Brighton Station later this year.

The council also removed about 100 signs from the London Road area in 2011 during a project to improve the area.

Removed signs are recycled where possible or disposed of in an environmentally friendly method. If sold, the money is then used to bolster the city’s traffic budgets.

Earlier this month, the Department for Transport urged councils to do more to remove unnecessary signs “blotting the landscape of towns and cities”.

The chair of the council’s transport committee, Ian Davey, said: “We’re in favour of removing what our traffic experts regard as excess signage and road clutter.

“We do not have any specific targets for this, but we make a habit of factoring it into our roads and traffic improvement projects.”

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