I PARTICULARLY enjoyed my Christmas and New Year holidays this season because the roads were such a joy.

Not only did the council do a reasonable job in gritting them, but there were few motorists on them at rush hour so it was a relief not to be stuck in traffic for a change.

High Wycombe town centre was busy at certain shopping periods but it was generally easy to notice the difference made by people being off work and off school.

This all leads me to reassemble my idea to change school hours permanently to free up our roads.

It’s a nonsense that schools should have the same start time as most offices and factories. This means that school-run traffic always clashes with drivers going to work. And it makes many parents all the more frantic as they seek to drop their kids off and get to their workplace on time.

How much easier it would be if schools began say at 7.30am-8am? This would mean parents would entirely avoid the early morning rush and they would surely sacrifice an hour in bed for this. Naturally this presents a problem at the other end of the day because pick-up time would be earlier. But as school collections already intrude upon normal working days, would this really be an issue? And if it is, then what’s wrong with putting on a few after-school clubs to compensate.

Naturally, some teachers may complain about the anti-social hours. But if it makes them tired, then they can surely compensate by having a series of good lie-ins during all that school holiday they enjoy.