Many of the lines on our roads are faded, some to the extent that they’re not visible, but repainting them doesn’t feature highly on the County Council’s list of priorities. There’s some sense in that because when you’re strapped for cash you’ll spend it first where it can have the most impact and that’s typically not repainting lines on side roads.

But just sometimes you’d think that if you’ve got someone close by with a pot of paint and a paintbrush then you might be able to use the opportunity to freshen up other lines and not just the ones you were sent out to do.

That’s what’s just happened at the bottom end of Cambridge Road. The give way markings on the road had faded and that meant that people who used it were unaware that they should give way to traffic from the right. Not a big safety issue but something to worry about nonetheless.

So when the work was being done up by the Baptist Church to mark out the bus stops and the no parking areas the engineer on site took advantage of the opportunity to add a little more value. It would have cost just about nothing, it was easy to arrange and it responded to a request from the community. The end result: very visible white lines and a safer junction as a result.

There’s a basic principle in quality improvement to ‘do the obvious straight away’. That’s what was done, almost zero cost and a good result all round. A victory for common sense.