Apostrophes in peril?

A nice little news article to round off the week - those who know me, as a writer, know of my anal fascination with punctuation, spelling and grammar.

This story caught my eye this morning on the news - apparently a local council in Birmingham are phasing out apostrophe usage on road signs to ensure consistency and save money...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7858853.stm

I'm literally literary crying right now - is it 2 L8 b4 R country loses all sense of English???!!!