GLORIOUS wildflower verges on the road leading up to the district s newest tourist attraction are being missed by visitors struggling to find the site. Future Gardens, the first phase of Butterfly World in Chiswell Green, has asked St Albans MP Anne Main

GLORIOUS wildflower verges on the road leading up to the district's newest tourist attraction are being missed by visitors struggling to find the site.

Future Gardens, the first phase of Butterfly World in Chiswell Green, has asked St Albans MP Anne Main to intervene over the poor signage to the gardens which are accessed by the new road Miriam Lane which runs from the A405 near the Noke roundabout.

Although signs pointing to Future Gardens and the neighbouring Gardens of the Rose have gone up on the outskirts of the city, they become merely a single flower on a brown background closer to the site.

And Angela Harkness, senior commercial director of the Butterfly World project, admits that they may have to revert to sandwich boards so visitors know how to get there and where the entrance is.

The 27-acre Future Gardens opened last month and was expecting 200,000 visitors to the site during the four months it is open this summer.

But Angela said: "We are really upset about the signs because it is impacting on our numbers drastically. They are not taking anyone straight to the site and become nothing but a flower and an arrow. Anne Main is certainly very concerned about it."

She warned that the opening of Future Gardens before the main Butterfly World scheme with its tropical biome and walkthrough experience had to be a success or the whole scheme could be in jeopardy.

But she said that they had no control over the signs which was why they had asked Anne Main to intervene.

Mrs Main has taken up the issue with Herts Highways and said that it was not very clear where the entrance to the site was. "It is easy to drive right past it," she pointed out.

A spokesperson for Herts Highways said that signage throughout the country had to comply with traffic signs regulations and while the aim was to optimise signage, it had to be weighed against clutter, distraction and confusion.

Normal practice was to provide main tourist attraction signs and then reduce them to arrows with smaller signs.

He added: "If people are au fait with normal tourist information, they would know that is the way to the gardens."

n Youngsters - and adults as well if they wish - are being encouraged to let their imagination take flight and come along to Future Gardens dressed as a butterfly.

In return they will receive free admission and the best butterflies will be selected to attend a pageant at which with the loveliest and most imaginative will receive a prize from the founder of Butterfly World Clive Farrell and botanist and TV personality David Bellamy.