by business editor Trevor Sturgess

Royal British Legion Industries is gearing up for a new generation of tourism road signs by investing more than £250,000 in its business.

RBLI operates a number of enterprises at its Aylesford headquarters, including pallet-making, timber and sign printing for road and rail.

They employ a number of people with a disability.

Profits are ploughed back into other parts of the charity and social enterprise including training, jobs, housing and welfare support for the Armed Forces, disabled and vulnerable people

The Government is about to unveil new road signs for tourist destinations. From July, the brown heritage and tourism signs will be revamped as part of a campaign to boost tourism.

Heritage sites and tourist destinations will be able to swap their existing old brown signs for prominent new ones that can include a full colour photograph.

The RBLI’s new MUTOH Zephyr Digital Printer and Zund flat bed plotter means the charity will be one of only three organisations in the country to produce the improved tourism and heritage signs.

The new signs will be made of flexible, reflective polycarbonate ensuring that, even in semi-darkness, a car’s headlights will penetrate the sign and reflect its vibrant colours as if it is internally lit.

Robert James, RBLI commercial manager, said: “Investing in the new technology is a quantum leap forward for RBLI’s social enterprise business.

"Not only does this investment mean we can produce the new tourism signs, it also enables us to further improve quality and shorten the length of time it takes to make our existing range of signs - reducing the cost to the organisation overall.”

RBLI displayed its new signs at Traffex Exhibition in the NEC, Birmingham, this week.