Contractors made a start - not very successfully - on clearing tonnes of windblown sand from St. Helen's Road yesterday.

An inept street sweeper driver was seen making a vain attempt to 'hoover' it up - to no avail.

One local from Redgate who drove towards Ormskirk behind him told QLocal's Roger Blaxall yesterday afternoon that all he did was succeed in creating a huge plume of sand behind him...

Crazier still was a vain attempt to mow the grass at the Uni. entrance; the mower man carried on regardless with sand blowing every which way ... perhaps a team would have raked it up before any attempt at 'manicuring' the Uni. lawn was made.

Perhaps Lord Derby might lend a hand to clear it up - after all it's his sand!

Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon this email flooded into the QLocal newsdesk: "Following an emergency call out on Saturday we attended to clear as much of the soil as possible from the road.

"We're currently working to arrange a sweeping vehicle to clear more of the soil from the road until we can organise traffic management to allow the rest of it to be safely removed."