By Suffolk Gazette Staff

Expensive new road signs welcoming visitors to Suffolk have not gone down well with residents.

Suffolk County Council has paid £25,000 for four new signs featuring television favourite Worzel Gummidge, the lovable scarecrow.

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The signs have been erected on the county border on the side of the A12, A14, A140 and A134, and council chiefs claim they give a friendly impression to visitors.

A council spokesman said: “The old Suffolk signs were quite boring. They featured a coat of arms nobody even knew existed. But everyone knows Worzel Gummidge and people outside of the county think that’s what we’re all like. It was a perfect fit and will boost tourism.”

That view is not shared by many locals, however. Suffolk Gazette reader Jon Pertwee, of Framlingham, got in touch to say Worzel Gummidge was not an appropriate figurehead for Suffolk.

“It’s just ridiculing us,” he fumed. “We should instead have a famous local person there, like Benjamin Britten or Cardinal Wolsey. Or Ed Sheeran.”

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