A local authority has reversed its decision to ban apostrophes on new street signs - after it provoked fury from locals and linguists.

North Yorkshire Council previously said all new street signs would be made without the punctuation mark to avoid problems with computer systems.

And when a new sign was erected in St Mary’s Walk in Harrogate without an apostrophe, it caused an international outrage.

It made headlines around the world and drew heavy criticism from locals, with one saying: "It riles my blood."

But Keane Duncan, the authority's executive member for highways, said: “The apostrophe will live on”.

He told a meeting on Wednesday (May 15): “I'm pleased to confirm today that this council is not abandoning standards. The apostrophe will live on in North Yorkshire.

"The county will continue to be a haven of proper punctuation, on street signs at least.

"All new signs will be fully punctuated, not only with apostrophes but with hyphens and ampersands too.”

Mr Duncan also said that the “controversial” new St Mary's Walk sign would be replaced with one showing the correct punctuation.

And he said there would be no further “unnecessary abbreviations of names” in the future.

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Some on social media had strongly defended the use of apostrophes when the council originally announced the ban on them.

One resident wrote: “You need to enforce the rule of the apostrophe, without it the English language is dead.”

Another added: “Another crackpot council throwing money away--- stop bloody meddling and tinkering with things and get on with running services properly.”