HOTEL owner Ken Elvin has been sent round the bend by council officials who told him to take down a makeshift road sign - three years after it was put up.

The Ellerbeck Hotel on Wellington Street, St John's, Blackburn, almost went out of business when the opening of Barbara Castle Way blocked its main access route.

Ken tied a three-feet-by-two-feet aluminium sign on a tree at the side of Preston New Road, telling potential customers the way to the hotel.

But now Blackburn Council has told him it is illegal after receiving a complaint. Ken said: "The year after the new road layout was brought in, we struggled to stay open.

"The way to the hotel via Strawberry Bank was cut off and people just used to drive past.

"The council promised us they would put up a sign saying there was a hotel where we are but nothing ever happened so we put up our own about three years ago. "It's not causing an obstruction like the A-boards you see all over the place and it can't be that much of a nuisance because it has been there for three years.

"If we can't have a sign telling people where we are, we're likely to close."

A spokesman for Blackburn Council said:

"We received a complaint about the sign from a member of the public.

"We operate a policy, along with Lancashire County Council, of controlling these things and our investigations revealed the sign was illegal.

"We have asked the hotel owner to remove it but we will continue to speak to him to try and come up with an alternative, legal sign.

"We do inspect the borough for illegal signs but some do escape the net until they are pointed out to us."

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