10 APRIL 1953, Page 4

The notices which one sees on the outskirts of towns

saying " Quidsborough Welcomes Careful Drivers " may do some good and cannot possibly do any harm. But I deplore the growing habit among urban district councils and similar bodies of erecting them in what is still unspoilt country. They mark, I imagine, the boundaries of the urban district (or the borough, or whatever it is), and one day the built-up area will extend right up to the point at which they stand. The prospect that it will do so may fill the aldermen and councillors with pride, but it has a slightly depressing effect on me and I should have thought that these notices would serve their purpose just as well if they were sited just outside the beginning of the thirty-mile