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Devon has rejected a plan for multi-lingual road signs to stop foreign hauliers driving down unsuitable roads. Devon County Council has concluded that the cost of producing the signs would outweigh any benefits, even though the county has had to deal with several incidents after sat-nav systems directed truck drivers down narrow country lanes.

Government's Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has urged councils  to think twice before spending money on translation - BBC research suggests that councils in the UK are spending £100m a year on translation services. Road signs in foreign languages have proved controversial in recent months not least the bi-lingual signs put up by the Highways Agency on the Shropshire-Cheshire border. These were not in English and Welsh, as you might expect in that part of the country, but in English and Polish due to the number of immigrant drivers working in the area.

On the other side of the country in February, drivers in Great Shelford, Cambridge encountered a sign declaring "Traffig O'ch Blaen", which is Welsh for "Traffic Control Ahead". This found its way into East Anglia because a team of workers from Cardiff was installing a sewer in the area and had brought the bilingual signs with them. A spokesman for Cambridgeshire  County Council stressed that the sign had nothing to do with the council, but he added: "We do love the Welsh". The only dual-language road signs in Cambridgeshire have been installed by the Highways Agency - like those on the Welsh border, they are in Polish.