Keeping us safe from leaves in the road

I'm tend to be skeptical of government's efforts, and this is another example why.

Grandmother Betty Davies has swept the street clean outside her house for the past 62 years without so much as raising an eyebrow.

The 88-year-old widow prides herself on keeping her front doorstep and pavement pristine.

But after one of her daily tidy-ups, a council worker knocked on the door of her home in Splott, Cardiff, to warn her she could be taken to court.

Mrs Davies was told she could be breaking litter laws and might be fined for brushing the leaves into the roadway.

So if a leaf falls from a tree to the road, that's okay. But if a leaf falls two inches from the road and you sweep it the two inches, that's a date in court.

Fortunately in this case sanity prevailed and the local government had to back down from fining an 88 year old woman for keeping things tidy.