Sloppy signwriters appear to be going through another bad spell after a rogue letter was appended to a street sign in Carshalton.

Literacy avengers were amazed to find Assembly Walk had been given the more archaic-sounding title of Assembley Walk.

One glowering resident said: “The dyslexic signwriter struck long ago in Assembly Walk, Carshalton, where at the post office end it spells Assembley. How much did the ‘e’ cost the taxpayer?"

This week Sutton Council apologised for the embarrassing error and promised to correct the sign.

A spokesman said: “We will put it right straight away.

"We also want to say thank you to the eagle-eyed person who spotted it.”

The new outbreak of public illiteracy follows a story on the Sutton Guardian website about two spelling errors appearing on a temporary sign in Worcester Park.

Some Lindsay Road residents were left struggling to decipher the hastily-scribbled message: “Due to mechanical failer your road will be reserviced at a later date.”

Many others defended the helpful contractor, saying this reporter should have showed a basic aptitude for road maintenance before highlighting the misspellings.

However, Peter Sharpe, who took a photograph of the offending sign, was adamant that a bad example had been set to schoolchildren.

He said: “It certainly seems to be the case that standards of literacy and grammar are in decline.

"Today’s children have access to a vast repository of knowledge that previous generations could only dream of, yet despite being almost surgically attached to their mobile phones, BlackBerry’s and PCs, the use of predictive text and spellcheckers have robbed them of the ability to construct a well spelt and grammatically correct letter.

"The simple art of the handwritten letter, sent by post, is being eroded by the text message and email.”

• What do you think? Let us know by email here, phone the newsdesk on 020 8330 9555 or leave a comment below.