From the moment the new Bishopston primary school became a political issue, it was in trouble.

Labour refused to build it, but the Liberal Democrats came to power and promised they would build it.

And then the process descended into farce.

As a bizarre attempt to create more school places, the Liberal Democrats wanted to put two temporary classrooms on land next to Gloucestershire cricket ground where the new school will be built.

But until the new school was finished they wanted these classes to be part of another school.

Bishop Road governors refused to take responsibility for them, so did others and the council has now been left with egg on its face.

So 12 months on from the last debacle we are heading for the same situation again.

And the question has to be asked: How many times are the people responsible for school admissions going to be allowed to get things wrong and then get away with it?

Yet the council officers running the education department (as it used to be called) are not novices.

But they seem only to struggle from crisis to self-inflicted crisis.

If they cannot properly organise a year's intake of children, and they cannot get the support of schools to help them, and they can only come up with piecemeal solutions that seemed doomed to failure, then what is the point of them being there?