How long does it take to improve safety outside a St Albans school? Five weeks? Five months?

No: five years.

Fleetville Infant School, working with local councillor Chris White, requested some yellow lines in Royal Road outside the school five years ago, to make it safer for children arriving on foot. The consultation was done last year.

Since then nothing. Understandably the school wants to know what has happened and the explanation appears to be that the files have been lost by the district council which should have been processing the traffic orders of behalf of the county council.

Chris said: ‘Fortunately I never delete an email and so have been able to track down the relevant paperwork for the officers of both councils who will now hopefully talk to each other. They now need to treat this as top priority.

They promised me action. They promised the school action. A bureaucratic bungle should not be allowed to get in the way of kids’ safety.’