BANNERS bought as part of a Herefordshire town rebrand costing tens of thousands of pounds will be relegated to a car park after a major blunder.

The decision comes after councillors last year heard that an "administrative error" had seen new banners for installation on the A44 in Bromyard ordered in the wrong size.

The resulting banners were manufactured at 50 per cent of the planned size "due to a misunderstanding over specifications used on the previous scheme", minutes from a meeting of the town council's finance committee revealed.

"Unfortunately the sizing had gone unnoticed by all parties involved and had only come to light upon misunderstanding," documents said.

Two members of the public who attended the meeting also expressed their "extreme dislike" of the banner designs and urged that the town's old banners be reinstated, the minutes said.

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It was moved that the banners be removed and repurposed in a car park in the town, with the job of replacement referred to the council's planning and economic development committee.

A working group has now been set up to oversee the design submissions for the creation of six new banners on the A44, minutes from a recent meeting of the council's committee revealed, with councillors set to liaise with designers and present their findings to the committee on February 5.

The final design will be chosen by full council on February 26.

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Bromyard underwent a major rebranding exercise in 2022, with new A44 banner designs chosen in July that year.

The designs were controversial at the time, with two councillors, Councillor Gill Churchill and Coun Liam Holman, saying they did not like any of the proposed designs, and Coun Clare Davies suggested that the current banners were kept instead.

They were part of a £90,000 Government-backed project, which saw changes in the town such as new signage, and artwork installations.

Included in the project was the controversial Bromyard backwards D, which was dropped from the town's name after a backlash.