Veteran’s family wants misspelled street name fixed

October 21, 2016 · 0 Comments

By Michelle Janzen

Six members of the Wansbrough family attend Monday’s Council meeting to discuss the spelling error on a street sign located at the entranceway to the Lakeview Subdivision.

The family approached Council and gave a brief history on their family member, General Elgin McKinnon Wansbrough, who fought in both the First and Second World Wars and earned the Order of the British Empire before his death in 1970.

The family also indicated that as a past veteran of this town, they are participating in the upcoming Hometown Heroes project, in which Shelburne’s servicemen and women will be honoured with special street banners.

The family said they were honoured when they were originally told about the naming of Wansbrough Way after their family member and, although it was a great initiative, it fell short for the family when the spelling was incorrect.

The name on the current street sign is spelled “Wansburgh Way.”

That being said, the family is asking that this error be corrected with a new sign.

Mayor Ken Bennington offered his sincere apologies to the family for the error.

“Our intentions were great; however, a simple mistake has spiraled”.

Mayor Bennington stated that he had gone back over past documents to see exactly where the mistake was made.

“The name was spelled correctly on every document, except for the one that matter the most,” Mayor Bennington told the Wansbrough family. “We made a mistake and want to correct it, however there are financial costs attached to having the named changed, as well as all of the residents of the street having to change all of their identification.”

After some brief discussion, and talk of possibly renaming a street in the newest subdivision coming to the south end of Shelburne, it was decided that the Town needs to investigate the situation further to gather all the costs associated with such a project.

“Although we like the sentiment of naming a new street with the correct spelling, we personally would like to see the error made corrected on the original street,” said the family.