March 28, 2023

Volunteers needed for historic signpost refurbishment

The Exmoor National Park Authority is looking for volunteers for its historic signposts teams.
They need people able and willing to clean, and repaint the old fashioned back on white iron signposts across Exmoor.
Many of us remember seeing Sue Newton and Jackie Smith at road junctions throughout our parish, washing and painting signs.  We now have no parish based volunteers – and a lot of signposts. Can you help?
Ideally volunteers will ‘adopt’ one or more signposts which they will keep an eye on and assess which ones need work, and, where possible (after training) carry this work out. Work could be cleaning, painting or clearing light vegetation to ensure visibility. All materials are provided and training is given.
The next training date is 6th July 2022.

Once volunteers are trained it is hoped they will adopt one (or more) signposts for a period of 3 years.

Some of the signs may be outside of the team’s scope (too fast/busy road) and then a volunteer will be asked to keep a watching brief and report any problems back to the National Park or Highways Authority to arrange works.

To give an idea of the scale of the task, and what is in our parish, a map of the posts can be seen here .

Volunteers will be asked to make at least one report a year. Trained volunteers will be invited to social events for Exmoor National Park volunteers and there will be an email support group for the Historic Signpost Volunteers through which volunteers can request another air of hands to help to work on a sign (to avoid loan working) or to share resources such as tools or paint.

Find out more and sign up here  or contact Patrick Watts-Mabbott at ENPA

Tel:  01398 323665 (switchboard), Mobile:  07973727469

mail: pwatts-mabbott@exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk