There is a smooth ride ahead for a local village primary school and football club, both of which are benefiting from resurfacing work at a shared car park, completed free of charge.

Colney Heath JMI and Colney Heath Football Club have been using rough ground between their respective sites off the High Street to park vehicles near the recreation ground.

Colney Heath district councillor Chris Brazier approached local company, Tarmac, to see if it could help as “mums and dads always use this as a car park”.

He explained: “I have been trying for many years to get the land brought into repair but there has always been confusion over who owns it.

“We have now reached agreement that Tarmac owns the land, but the school and football club can use it as a car park, which suits everybody.”

There are former gravel pits nearby, which have since been turned into fishing lakes.

Cllr Brazier said: “I’m very grateful to Tarmac for the work it has done in making this area safe and useable.”

Colney Heath parish council has also praised the company for the resurfacing work, which will make it much safer for parents to drop off their children.

Cllr Margaret Nash said: “The track at the side of the school had become uneven and dangerous to walk on, and not only caused problems for the school community, but also for visitors to the football club and the recreation ground.

“On behalf of residents, the parish council wants to thank Tarmac for its generosity in repairing the potholes and putting a fabulous new surface down.”

Tarmac area operations manager Rob Heath said: “Although we supply asphalt across the entire county, as a local company we are particularly delighted to provide tonnes of it to this local Colney Heath project to resurface the car park.”

The firm recently opened one of its newest and most sustainable asphalt plants in the country at Harper Lane which employs 35 local residents.

But as it needs hard rock to make asphalt, and there are no hard rock quarries in Hertfordshire, Tarmac transports granite by train from Leicestershire to make different types of road surfacing material and where possible, recycles old asphalt into new.