This road sign has raised a few eyebrows among motorists as they crawl along the A27 Shoreham flyover.

The huge spelling error on the blue Highways Agency sign, which warns of a bridge repair scheme, is making thousands of drivers wince every day.

It informs them of bridge "strenThening" work rather than strenGthening work on the road at the Shoreham flyover.

The sign also boasts: "The Department of Transport Investing in roads" underneath.

Embarrassed officials from the Highways Agency are now investigating how the error happened.

Agency spokesman Ian Mitchell said the matter would be passed on to a team of site agents in the area. He said: "Alteration to the sign should be a relatively simple matter."

The Plain English Campaign, based in New Mills, Derbyshire, is an independent organisation fighting for crystal clear language.

Ian Lister, the organisation's spokesman, said: "I have heard of cutbacks but this is ridiculous!

"This is a tremendous howler. This is not good because it does distract the attention of people going by.

"If you have to concentrate and read the sign twice then you have missed the whole point of the sign which is supposed to be telling you clearly what is going on the road.

"The signs on roads have actually been getting better and they are more often written in lower case than capital letters. But when you are going past in a car, rather than read them letter to letter you also recognise shapes of words, the same as you do when you speed-read.

"If there is a letter out of place you do tend to do a double take. As to how this could have happened, I think everyone assumes everyone else has checked it."

The sign is estimated to have cost the agency between £500 and £1,000.

The Argus reported recently how East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton had written to the agency to complain about the disruption caused by almost continuous repair work on the road. The latest work to strengthen the Shoreham flyover will end in December.

It will be closing for 40 nights throughout the summer while the bridge is shored up.

The bridge will be closed from the Coombes Road junction to the A283 interchange from 10pm to 6am.

It will mean traffic being forced along residential roads.

Danny Harding danny.harding @argus-btn.co.uk