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During her opening remarks at the transport scrutiny committee’s examination of , chairman Victoria Quinn warned members that she did not want a witch hunt.

“This should be a light grilling, not a barbecue,” she said as members sharpened their knives ready for Labour cabinet member responsible for transport, Tahir Ali, and senior officers John Blakemore and Kevin Hicks to explain themselves.

Regular readers of this column will know that an independent tribunal has ruled that warning signs for motorists approaching three out of ten city centre bus lanes were inadequate and that the majority of the 60,000-plus fines issued should be cancelled or refunded.

So far Coun Ali and his colleagues are only prepared to cancel the majority of the 18,000 appeals currently being processed and consider refunds for others who ‘made representations’ at the time but whose appeals were rejected.

The first questions to Coun Ali from Coun Quinn, a solicitor by trade, were around this point – what exactly is a representation? An official appeal? A strongly worded letter or email? A bit of a grumble on the phone to the council’s call centre?

Any of those, suggested Coun Ali, only to be later undone by Mr Hicks who said that only an official appeal counts.

As the contradictions and woolly responses flowed, committee members grew increasingly frustrated – with councillors Deirdre Alden (Cons, Edgbaston), John O’Shea (Lab, Acocks Green), Josh Jones (Lab, Stockland Green) and Jerry Evans (Lib Dem, Springfield) joining Coun Quinn (Lab, Sparkbrook) in the attack.

The committee is rightly incensed because it highlighted issues with the bus lanes in December and was ignored by Coun Ali and his staff.