It may have been in place for well over a year now, but it has only just been noticed that there is a glaring mistake in the large “Purley” Mural on Purley Road, Purley.
Instead of saying Purley, it actually says “Purely”. It is thought that this most likely happened through the auto current on the email when first requesting the piece of art, switching Purley to Purely.
“It has happened many times before with auto correct of the word Purley in emails, but never has it had such a knock-on effect.” Said Flora Pilor the marketing Manager of Purley BID. Flora went on to explain further that when they noticed this issue earlier this week they contacted the TFL immediately to see what could be done. The response was that due to the size and effort to repaint this large mural a more cost-effective solution would have to be found.
Simon Cripps, CEO of Purely BID said “At first we thought it was a joke, but when we received 1000’s of stickers from the council, for us to change the existing smaller signs we realised they were serious.” With everything being electronic these days, names can be changed by the press of a button, such as our new domain name of http://purelybid.co.uk/ , so it is proven by far cheaper to make the updates online and a few smaller signs than the large expensive Mural.
Professor Uri Avinalaff, head of Toponymy at the Institute of Place name says that it is not as uncommon as you think for names to change, you just have to look at great examples in history of such as New York (From New Amsterdam) and Katie Price (From Jordon). Professor Avinalaff, believes that “on previous occasions, it normally takes only a few weeks to get used to the new name and the people of Purely will soon forget their old name”