{"id":607073,"date":"2026-05-27T18:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607073\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:33:08","slug":"typical-council-residents-baffled-after-keep-clear-sign-appears-15-years-too-late-stoke-on-trent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607073\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Typical council\u2019: residents baffled after \u2018keep clear\u2019 sign appears 15 years too late | Stoke-on-Trent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Hassan Ali was on holiday in Budapest when he was contacted by his neighbour about a sign that had been painted on the road directly outside his semi-detached home in Staffordshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The bright yellow sign, which read \u201cSchool: Keep Clear\u201d, was painted on Greendock Street in the early hours of Friday morning, his neighbour informed him \u2013 a bewildering update considering there was no school to keep clear of and had not been one for the past 15 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Ali said. \u201cThe school moved 15 years ago. Plus, even if there is a school, the access to the school should be [over] there, not in front of my house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sign remained visible even after the council\u2019s hasty intervention. Photograph: Neha Gohil\/The Guardian<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It\u2019s a debacle that has caused somewhat of a stir in Longton, one of six towns in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/stoke-on-trent\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stoke-on-Trent<\/a>, attracting local media attention and forcing the council\u2019s Labour leader, Jane Ashworth, to apologise for the mistake, admitting there \u201cclearly isn\u2019t a school\u201d there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The daubing has since been covered with black paint, making it barely legible while driving \u2013 an immediate response by the council seemingly to allay fears that people could receive a fine for parking outside their homes. However, the letters are still noticeable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ali said his friend had reported the road sign to local media and he believes the subsequent attention forced the council to act quickly. \u201cBecause of all the hoo-ha that happened \u2026 they act[ed] immediately,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we got the sign, but in black.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Assuming how the mistake had happened, he said: \u201cTypical council, the people sitting in the office, they don\u2019t have any ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Lee Evans, who lives on the street, said he noticed the sign on Friday and it was a topic of conversation with his neighbour.<\/p>\n<p>Lee Evans suspects the council was going off out-of-date plans. Photograph: Neha Gohil\/The Guardian<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He said: \u201cWhy\u2019ve they put a school [sign] there when there\u2019s no school no more?<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThey probably got the wrong piece of paper, haven\u2019t they?\u201d he added. \u201cGone off the old plans, I reckon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ashworth said she was embarrassed by the mistake and the authority would review the issue. \u201cI\u2019m annoyed for the residents that live there that have been messed about but embarrassed that we made such a mistake,\u201d she told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ali said he wanted clarification on who was responsible for signing off the plan at the council and accused the local authority of \u201calways blaming somebody else\u201d. He also wanted to be told how much the entire debacle had cost.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He speculated: \u201cWho\u2019s going to pay for it? Me. They\u2019re going to add it to the council tax.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Stoke-on-Trent council has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hassan Ali was on holiday in Budapest when he was contacted by his neighbour about a sign that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-607073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}