RED tape has forced the removal of signs that have marked the way to a country hotel and restaurant for 30 years.

The signs showing the way to Old Mill Hotel near Langtoft, which is tucked down a quiet country lane, were taken down last week after East Riding Council threatened the owners with a hefty fine, causing the loss of vital passing trade.

Co-owner Kathie Oliver-Heaton, who took the hotel on in 2005, said they’d had 100 for Sunday lunch on Mothering Sunday, but were down to eight last week.

She said they’d tried to compromise with officials by coming up with a rustic-looking sign in cream and brown. But planning permission was refused and they learned this week that an appeal had failed. They’d put up brown tourism signs, but they hadn’t done the trick.

Ms Oliver-Heaton said: “We asked them how can we let people know where we are? They said you can have brown signs, but they are tiny and don’t say who we are and where we are. The problem is people are not looking for signs, they are looking for our signs. I think it is bureaucracy gone mad.”

East Riding Council said the hotel hadn’t complied with an agreement to remove the “illegal” signs once the brown ones were put up.