Wait, is this about SQL injection? Are they admitting that If I paste a piece of paper that says '; drop table streets; -- over their street sign it'll fuck all their shit up?

If so, this is not a problem that should be fixed by changing the street signs.

Or is the problem that they've got people with limited technical skill manually constructing SQL queries to search these "geographical databases" and not knowing how to properly escape them?

Or did some intern developer neglect to use a parameterized query and something broke and the management chain at the North Yorkshire Council who don't even know what pebkac stands for heard "apostraphies are the problem?"

Maybe they've got some image recognition thing on their mail trucks and the apostrophies mess up the otherwise-monospace letter spacing?

Whatever the case, the whole idea of taking the apostrophies off the signs seems ridiculous to me.