WIRRAL Council bureacrats are facing a weighty dilemma after taking delivery last week of five new trucks custom-built to load motorised lawn mowers and hedge trimmers.

Staff were ordered to take the vehicles to a weighing station to check they did not exceed the legal limit with all equipment and a three-man crew on board.

And that's when they hit a major problem.

A source told the Globe: “Turns out they aren’t legal. They were about 300kg over.

“So the new vans – which cost at least £150,000 from Mercedes – plus the customised fitting out – are now sitting in the Cleveland Street depot doing absolutely nothing.”

A council spokesman said: “Before these five new vehicles were put into operation, as is right and proper, we carried out a series of checks to make sure they met the specifications we set when we ordered them from the supplier.

"When fully-loaded, we found that the vehicles slightly exceeded the 3.5 tonne weight limit we required.

“We are currently working with the supplier to address this issue and we hope to have the vehicles in service within the next two weeks once the required modifications have been carried out.”

The new vehicles are known as “beaver tail” trucks because they have a tilted ramp at the rear of the flat-bed to ease loading and unloading manoeuvres.