Motorway sign has plenty in store . . .

But the sign that's going up next to the M66 at Pilsworth, near Bury, has a serious purpose.

Supermarket giants Asda put it up in defiance of Highways Agency regulations which limit the familiar brown-coloured motorway signs to designated attractions. It offers a "welcome break from motorway services prices'' and is intended to persuade travellers to give the expensive ay services a miss.

Three years ago, Asda failed with a £400 million bid for the Welcome Break chain which they planned to turn into giant supermarkets.

They are turning their Pilsworth store into a "genuine" tourist attraction, with donkeys, sandcastles, sticks of rock and even saucy postcards of the store. The move comes after store bosses found a loophole in the law, which allows them to advertise themselves on brown 'tourist attraction' signs.

To qualify for a tourist sign, a destination must generate more than 250,000 visits per year.

Asda claim they easily meet the target, with 35,000 to 50,000 customer visits each week, and almost half of all Asda stores are within three minutes' drive of a major trunk route or motorway junction. Motorway service facilities are currently dominated by Granada, Welcome Break, and Roadchef which together control 78pc of all Britain's services.

Supermarket bosses believe they could have up to two-thirds off the prices charged by the roadside stops.

But a spokesman for Welcome Break said: "If Asda is hoping to attract people to their supermarkets rather than our service stations, then they may have a hard task."

"There are an awful lot of facilities available at our services and others, not all of which are easily available at a supermarket." A spokeswoman for the Highways Agency said: "Our policy is very straightforward. We have three priorities -- safety, environmental issues and the question of where you draw the line on this issue.

"Advertising on private land is a planning issue, so it is not something we can control."