A light in a traffic bollard has been fixed after residents reported it for more than six months to the county council’s highways department.

Amanda Brown of Langley Road, Watford, reported the fault on August 3, and on January 7 was told the fault had been "made safe".

Engineers caused the lights in the nearby bollards on the island outside her house to stop working while repairing a lamp-post in June 2013.

On August 15 she reported that the lights in the bollards were still not working, and a week later received an email saying it had been made safe.

Over the next three months, and after 12 more emails had been sent, and several cars had crashed into the unlit bollards, still nothing had been done.

Ms Brown said: "I am appalled by the complacency and incompetence of the highways authority.

"The fault was a serious traffic hazard, as proved by the number of cars that hit the bollards and reported by me to the engineers. It was a miracle no one was killed."

Ms Brown referred the matter to the county councillor for Nascot Park, Mark Watkin, who took the matter to Vince Gilbert, head of Hertfordshire Highways.

Even this was not enough and after two more attempts to fix the light and another email to Vince Gilbert, it was finally fixed on January 3, six months after the fault had been reported.

Mark Watkin said: "You will have read of the continued failings of the system for dealing with faults introduced by Hertfordshire Highways in July 2012.

"Only in the last few weeks before Christmas have the failings been acknowledged by the Conservative administration. The key point is when will they sort them out?"

"There can be no better example of just how bad the service has been than this."

Matthew Kelley, Ringway divisional manager, said identifying electrical faults is a process of elimination, and that engineers carried out four separate repairs to the bollards.

He added: “Each time engineers left the site, the bollards were working, with intermittent inspections carried out to check.

“A fault with the electricity supply was diagnosed as a result of previous fixes not solving the issue, and due to the longer timescale of repairs for such a fault, larger bollards were installed to improve visibility.

“The cable fault was subsequently repaired and the temporary bollard removed on 3 January, with the bollards functioning normally after engineers left the site.”