Nobody knows what colour this road sign is

Picture the scene: you're driving on a major British A-road road, and there's "Services" ahead. What colour would those signs be?

We know motorways have blue signs, but what about major A-roads? A 2018 study by Transport Focus found that the vast majority of drivers, asked about exactly this scenario, thought the road signs would be green with white text. They're wrong.

This sign is not green. Or at least, it's not supposed to be. Image © Google.

The signs are wrong

In 1981, the new TSRGD introduced "Services" signs for A-roads, for the first time. The sign was indeed white-on-green for primary routes, in keeping with all other A-road signs.

But in 2002, somebody decided that an A-road service station is a 'local facility', and as such they thought it would make more sense if they always had black-on-white signs, similiar to small villages. Quite why they thought this change was necessary isn't clear, especially as they have since hunkered down on the idea that all motorway services should always have blue signs, but rules are rules and that's what they've decided.

How it should be done: a white sign on the A34, promoting 'Services'.

Road signs are never changed immediately. In this case, a grace period until 2015 was created. After 2015, any green 'Services' signs are technically unlawful obstructions of the highway. But that was 10 years ago - so how come so many of them remain?

One issue is that nobody knows who paid for them. 'Services' sign faces belong to the company operating the facility, under what used to be called a 'Traffic Signs Agreement'. But some of these signs were installed in 1982, long before National Highways was called Highways England or even the Highways Agency or even the Department for Transport. During all those name changes, no records have been kept. The Department for Transport get their list of signposted service stations from Motorway Services Online. Many A-road 'Services' signs were requested by Trusthouse Forte, who don't exist any more.

If they don't know who they agreed to put the original signs up with, they can't discuss what changes need to be made (as the rules around some of the symbols have changed too), and they can't begin to talk about money.

Realistically, some of these original 'Services' signs were installed by quiet back-handers. This sounds like a conspiracy, but in fact highway authorities often make quiet agreements to silence difficult stakeholders. Now might be the time to take those unjustified signs down - but with no record-keeping, how do they know which ones to review?

This old sign points to a facility that has been sold multiple times since it was placed. So who owns it? (It was eventually replaced with something completely different.) Image © Google.

These legacy green signs will need to be dealt with one day, as one-by-one they will either fall down or be hit by errant vehicles. They will then have to find the right landowner one case at a time. Then there's a bigger issue.

The authorities don't know either

Take a spin on the A46, where a new flyover was opened in 2009 - seven years after the new rules came in.

You'll get to Budbrooke services, where the signs are all green! Obviously the signs would have been designed a few years previous, and the designer mustn't have heard that some new rules are out. It sounds alarming, but road sign errors are common - it gets worse.

It's a brand new road, but it has green signs.

Solihull does it different

Just outside Birmingham Airport, new 'Services' signs were added to the A45 in September 2025, 23 years after the new rules came in. Yet, for some reason, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council decided to make the signs green!

Quite how they made this mistake isn't entirely clear. The symbols on the sign also look off, so perhaps they just didn't know what they were doing.

In their defence, Solihull only have one other service area within their boundary, and that one has legacy green signs. So they don't have much cause to keep up with this policy and may have just copied what they already had.

But whatever went on here, it's clear that even those who are putting up the signs don't know what colour they should be.