It was a familiar sight. Along the streets of Derby last week diggers were noisily attacking tarmac, and men-at-work signs littered the pavements. But something was different here: the residents and motorists could not have been happier.

They cheerfully looked on as the labourers worked away, happy in the knowledge that years of noise, irritation, car damage and back pain were being brought to an end. The workmen were digging up the speed humps.

“We are delighted,” says Thelma Bradshaw, a resident who organised a campaign against them. “There has been anger and opposition from the moment they were put in, so this is like the end of an era.”

As well as ending the residents’ nightmares, the workmen were also writing the final chapter of a speed hump saga that has cost taxpayers more than £460,000, caused the downfall of a council and led to politics in the city of Derby effectively being controlled by one man with a dislike for humps. If proof were needed of just how big an issue speed humps have become in Britain today this is it.

The story began in May 2000 when £260,000 was spent installing 146 speed humps in streets in the Boulton and Sinfin areas of Derby.

They immediately caused resentment among residents who complained in particular of damage to cars and tyres as they scraped against the large sharp-sided speed cushions.

The residents began to mobilise and collect petitions, and the campaign acquired a new gravity when a cyclist was killed after he crashed while trying to avoid a hump.

When the council refused to relent on the humps, the residents’ group took a different tack, putting forward a candidate in last year’s local elections who would campaign on the single issue of abolishing speed humps.

They won. Ron Allen, a structural engineer who lives in one of the roads blighted by the bumps, ousted the Labour candidate and went on to retain his seat in May this year.

Slowly, things began to change: in April £70,000 was spent to remove 70 humps and modify 12, and more than £6,000 was spent on council questionnaires to ask residents their views. The results were clear: 74% of people wanted the speed bumps removed. Workmen are now working seven days a week to remove the remaining 76 in an operation that will cost £125,000 — £1,645 per hump. In total £3,150 has been spent laying and removing each hump.

But Labour’s failure to recognise the seriousness of the speed bump cause has cost it even more dear. The party has now lost control of the entire city council, traditionally staunchly Labour (the party has 25 seats, as does the Liberal Democrat/Tory alliance).

Balance of power in the council therefore rests with one man — the anti-speed-bump champion Allen. “I’m just pleased that these are being wiped off the Boulton map so it won’t become a no-go area,” he says. “It’s been a complete farce, waste of money, and has devastated people’s lives for three years.”

THE DERBY saga is just one symptom of the growing fury and controversy surrounding speed bumps. In Port Talbot, south Wales, protesters have taken to the streets, staging two marches against the installation of humps.