THERE is a perverse irony that the standing traffic seen recently on the A590 at Walney Road was due to health and safety procedures being observed at Barrow’s household waste centre.

The subsequent build-up of traffic outside the site lasting nearly half-an-hour led frustrated motorists caught in the tailbacks to take their chances down the middle white lines to dodge the queues.

Fortunately there were no collisions and few of us will need reminding that Walney Road is often choked with vehicles during working hours with many large HGVs using this major route to get in and out.

Yet it has somehow come to pass that the dangers of moving containers about on the tip was deemed more of a risk to the public than traffic standing stationary on the town’s busiest and fastest-moving thoroughfare.

Spare a thought for the tip operators who are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If they flout the on-site health and safety rules, you can bet their council paymasters will come down hard in the event of an incident.

Yet if they obligingly follow the official guidance and close down the site, it causes traffic chaos outside and fed-up motorists taking unnecessary risks in the face of oncoming traffic.

We all need a bit more patience at the wheel, but let’s be fair. A common sense approach to traffic and the tip needs to be found and fast.