Campaigners had to retrieve their election signs from a grit yard after council employees allegedly took them down.

Promotional boards for election candidates were removed by East Sussex County Council from their positions in and around Uckfield.

The Liberal Democrats were the only party to escape unscathed from the haul.

A council spokesman said the signs had been taken down from grass verges along public highways where they were a dangerous distraction for motorists and got in the way of contractors trying to cut the grass.

But Conservative supporter Ken Ogden said many of the signs were removed from private property, including his own hedge.

He said: "I can understand them taking down signs from along the bypass but not from people's hedges.

"They trespassed on to private property to collect them and it has upset a lot of people."

Charles Hendry, Conservative candidate for Wealden, said: "We think it is a very heavy-handed tactic. We assumed at first it was vandals who had taken them but then we found out they had been taken to the council depot."

Labour candidate Kathy Fordham said several of her posters had been removed, all of them from private property.

She said: "The council said they didn't take any Labour signs because they were all on private property but our signs have nevertheless ended up in the depot.

"We are not sure how they got there but apparently some people were seen taking them down who did not look like council workers and it is possible to walk up to the depot and chuck things over the wall."

Stephen Murphy, Liberal Democrat candidate for Wealden, said none of his posters had been affected.

Political signs were not the only posters and boards that suffered as part of the council clampdown.

Signs advertising the Tinkers Park Steam Rally at Hadlow Down and the Uckfield farmers' market were also removed with the others and taken to the council's Mill Pond depot in Maresfield.

A council spokesman said: "Our contractors were asked to remove all the signs from the highway grass verges for safety reasons, regardless of what they were advertising.

"The allegation that signs were taken out of people's hedges is something we are investigating."

Campaigners and event organisers went to the depot to retrieve their posters yesterday afternoon.

June 5, 2001