A TRIO of Dorset villages have been on the move according to a road sign just outside Dorchester.

Roy Skipp, who lives at Fordington Fields, was waiting for a bus near the Trumpet Major roundabout when he noticed the turn around.

A sign directing motorists to Broadmayne, West Stafford and Crossways had been erected the wrong way round so it instead directed them towards Dorchester along Alington Avenue.

Roy said he had arrived at the bus stop as a vehicle that he believed had come to install the sign was pulling away and immediately noticed the error.

He said: “It’s telling us that as you come around the roundabout Crossways is the other side of Dorchester.

“Whoever put it up obviously just didn’t think.”

Roy said the sign in question had actually given highways staff some trouble before as it often appeared to be leaning at an angle and he assumed it must be on soft ground.

He joked that at least it would make it easy for the staff to pull it out and turn it round again.

A spokesman for Dorset County Council said that nobody in the highways department was aware of the sign being installed or replaced and it was assumed that a member of the public had spun the sign round either by accident or ‘in a moment of high-jinks’.

She added: “The area team is going out to spin the sign back to face the right direction.”

A number of prank signs have been erected in the area over the past year.

One on Weymouth Way was amended to read Portland 7, Man Utd 1. Another on Preston Road stated that turning left at Overcombe Corner led to ‘nothing very interesting’ and one on Ridgeway proudly declared ‘Caution Pointless Sign’.

Poundbury residents were less than pleased to see an addition to a sign outside Dorchester directing motorists to ‘Ugly Buildings’.