OXFORDSHIRE County Council can’t be faulted for hoping a bus lane would help public transport around Kidlington, but it should have woken up to the problems it caused a lot sooner.

From the very first day, motorists were complaining the new 220-metre bus lane was causing delays.

The county, when challenged originally, dismissed the complaints out of hand, claiming queues were not excessive and its monitoring showed drivers were waiting only “one or two minutes at worst”.

A spokesman added: “Tuesday remains the only day where there has been difficulty.”

Six months on, and it has had to admit it got it wrong.

Not only have motorists been stuck in queues but Buses — the very vehicles the lane was designed to help run more realibly — have had up to 15 minutes put on their journeys from Bicester to Oxford.

RH Buses even says it warned the county before the lane was put in that it would cause problems.

It is right to try to give public transport advantages where you can, but waiting six months when the scheme was so obviously flawed early on does not do the county much credit.

It will have damaged confidence in those bus services, which is surely the most damaging aspect of the whole debacle.