{"id":252,"date":"2025-09-15T10:09:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/?p=252"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:09:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:09:52","slug":"a-sign-of-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/2025\/09\/a-sign-of-the-times\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sign of the times?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scotland\u2019s countryside\u2014and too many historic sites\u2014now read like bureaucratic noticeboards: layer on layer of \u201cdon\u2019t do this\u201d and \u201cwarning that,\u201d each with a different logo, tone and font. It\u2019s clutter masquerading as care. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code already sets the ground rules, yet every estate, council, NGO and attraction adds its own mini-code until the pathhead becomes a collage. People tune it out. The ones who read don\u2019t need it; the ones you\u2019re trying to reach walk straight past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t education; it\u2019s cognitive overload with a legal aftertaste. Signs fight the landscape and each other, shrinking attention for the few messages that matter (fires, livestock, coastal risk). More boards signal risk, so more boards appear, and the spiral continues\u2014while bins, paths and wayfinding do the real work quietly in the background. If you need a paragraph to say \u201ckeep dogs close near ground-nesting birds,\u201d you\u2019ve already lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fix is dull and effective: fewer, better, consistent. One clear ask per location, in plain language, aligned to the Outdoor Access Code. Use a shared icon set and the five-second rule: if a walker can\u2019t get it in five seconds, cut it. Put the heavy text at the car park, then let the path breathe. Give every sign an owner and a review date; remove the old before adding the new. Spend more on design, bins and gates, less on lecterns. Treat people like adults and let the place, not the poster, do the talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scotland\u2019s countryside\u2014and too many historic sites\u2014now read like bureaucratic noticeboards: layer on layer of \u201cdon\u2019t do this\u201d and \u201cwarning that,\u201d each with a different logo, tone and font. It\u2019s clutter masquerading as care. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code already sets the ground rules, yet every estate, council, NGO and attraction adds its own mini-code until…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/template-cover.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourlocality.org\/givenatureachance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}