I have a riddle for you. When is ‘news’ not ‘news’?

And the answer is when it relates to reports of being stuck in traffic for an hour or so trying to get off Riverside Retail Park.

There are lessons we learn as we go through life and one of those lessons – which I learned through bitter experience – is don’t go shopping at Riverside at the weekend and also avoid the place like the plague the closer we get to Christmas.

Yes, I’ve been stuck there for more than an hour in the past and yes, I’m prepared to admit that my car’s presence was simply adding to the problem.

I enjoyed reading some of the comments when the latest iteration of this story appeared on the Guardian’s website and apart from some of the hyperbolic nonsense about ‘free speech’ from people who don’t understand the laws of libel and hate speech, some really good points were made.

One reader posted: “Lots of whining motorists stuck in a queue caused by lots of whining motorists. Tee-hee.”

For what it’s worth, that’s a comment I very much agree with.

I’m also inclined to agree with the commentator who pointed out that the original idea was for a low volume, low footfall retail park – beds, furniture etc – but is now full of high footfall shops and a McDonald’s restaurant.

And I’m pretty sure that converting the former Harvester restaurant into a Starbucks drive-through is only going to add to the problems.

Of course, the reasons for the traffic jams are there for all to see – a major retail park with only one way out that exits onto one of the busiest junctions in town.

(Don’t get me started on the madness of building a big business park on the other side of the Bridge Foot junction that also only has one way in and one way out.) As many others have suggested, the solution to solve the Riverside problem would be to build a second, separate exit from the site but in all honesty, I just can’t see that happening any time soon so you pays your money and you takes your choice. Ask yourself just how much you enjoy sitting in your car with your engine running, adding to global warming.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s once bitten, twice shy and I’ll be giving Riverside Retail Park the widest of wide berths for the foreseeable future.

***

On another topic, my interest was piqued when I pulled up behind a private hire taxi at a set of lights in Great Sankey last week and noticed its licence plate said it was registered with the ‘City of Wolverhampton’.

You’re a long way from home, I thought. But maybe not.

Apparently, a private hire taxi licence issued by any local authority in the country allows a driver to ply his or her trade in more or less any town they want.

And it very much looks like Wolverhampton has cashed in on this loophole in the law.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that more than a third of private hire taxi drivers in Greater Manchester are licensed by Wolverhampton Council with the data revealing that’s almost 9,000 drivers.

Current legislation means private hire drivers can operate anywhere in England and Wales outside of London but some authorities have called for a change in the law with Transport for Greater Manchester saying local councils ‘cannot guarantee a high standard’ from out-of-town drivers.

And the evidence of my own eyes suggests there’s at least one Wolverhampton ‘invader’ already operating in Warrington.

The figures are quite remarkable. There are just over 36,000 private hire drivers with a Wolverhampton plate which equates to about 13 per cent of the city's population of 262,000, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Earlier this year, it emerged almost a third of England's private hire taxi drivers were registered in Wolverhampton and the local authority had to take on 20 new staff to cope with demand.

Now I’ve had a look at Warrington Borough Council’s taxi licensing document (all 110 pages of it) and there is, quite rightly, a heavy emphasis on safeguarding measures to protect the public. There’s also a system for reporting errant taxi drivers.

It would be interesting to find out exactly how many of the town’s private hire drivers are registered in Wolverhampton and I wonder just what sort of response you would get reporting a driver to a council more than 70 miles away.

I think I’d like accountability a little closer to home.