Edinburgh businessman voluntarily cleans road signs as 'they looked like the devil's underpants'

A businessman has voluntarily cleaned nearly 200 road signs since lockdown began.

Businessman Richard Hopley has voluntarily cleaned near to 200 signs in and around Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders

Community-minded Richard Hopley, 46, started sprucing up signs in and around Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders in March to help locals and tourists get about safely without getting lost by obscured directions.

He travels around the areas while running his own oven cleaning business and regularly spots dirty signs, covered in grime and mud, spending around 20 minutes cleaning each with hot water, soap and a scouring pad. He says much of the work he undertakes was carried out by local authorities but has been delayed as staff are diverted to other duties during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Richard, from Colinton, Edinburgh, was inspired to take up the work after window cleaner spruced-up road signs in the Borders for charity two years ago.

Sign of the times..

He has cleaned signs for the statue of Sir William Wallace near Melrose, Colinton Tunnel in Edinburgh and Smailholm Tower near Kelso.

Dedicated Richard said: "I first started doing it back in March.

"While driving between the clients' houses I noticed that road signs were looking awful in this lockdown and very difficult to read and frankly dangerous, especially if you are traveling through these roads at night time with no street lights, or cats eyes on the road.

"With the mild winter we had, the road signs got really bad around the Scottish Borders and Edinburgh.

"I cleaned around five road signs a week in the beginning, but in the last four months I've been doing more and more.

"It probably takes 20 to 25 minutes per sign and I've cleaned around 180 signs.

"I'm mainly doing signs on local roads and B roads near tourist sites, like the brown ones. They're rank.

"Colinton Tunnel's beautifully painted but the signs looked like the devil's underpants.

"I want to do something about it because nobody else is going to do it."

Richard, who runs Borderovens, added: "Some signs haven't been cleaned for around a year or more.

"I've noticed a lot of roads are dangerous at nighttime.

"If people can't read signs people might not know about the roads - it's for health and safety.

"I care about other people and it's for people visiting the town's and people in the areas getting around.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.