That’s it then. We can all rest easy. The city is in safe hands again and a repeat of the traffic disaster that brought whole swathes of Southampton to a standstill for several hours last Friday is off the cards.

An emergency meeting of the city’s cabinet – overseen by the Council Leader Cllr Simon Letts himself – has formulated an action plan to ensure drivers will never again face three-hours stuck stationary behind the wheel going nowhere, taxi firms will not lose valuable custom, businesses will avoid haemorrhaging trade, cruise passengers will not be forced to hump their heavy cases along rain-swept streets as a memorable start to their holidays, and, one supposes, pensioners will no longer be forced to urinate in the gutter.

That’s a lot of relieved people – especially, one surmises, the caught-short pensioners.

So what does this revolutionary Action Plan include? For starters they plan to shut a bus lane and remodel the entrance to Dock Gate 4. Then, in a bid to stagger the arrival of cruise visitors to the city they will be offered free entry to the Sea City museum and Tudor House as an incentive to travel a day earlier than planned and spend hundreds of pounds booking into a hotel and eating out (clever, but not likely to work).

Finally, and here’s the really killer stuff, the council plans to have a command and control team on hand to monitor the traffic situation on busy days, and, wait for it, ask the police to be around to help out if necessary.

To which I am bound to ask the inevitable questions: are you really telling us that up to now and despite similar traffic chaos on at least two occasions recently, there hasn’t been anyone looking after traffic flow in the city on such occasions, and why aren’t the police helping out anyway?

Indeed, are we to accept that during last Friday’s Jam-From-Hell debacle not one copper was sent in a hurry to assist in a waving of arms and blowing of whistle, get the traffic flowing at all costs, sort of way? Seems we are.

There is someone in charge of the city’s traffic in fact. Cabinet member and deputy council leader Jacqui Rayment has that responsibility. But, as she pointed out rather tersely in a sharp reply to an email from one irate business leader, she was unfortunately attending hospital on a family matter when the crisis struck and was unaware. While no one questions Cllr Rayment’s entitlement to attend to a medical situation, surely someone else should be minding the shop while she is away.

There is no escaping the impression following last Friday’s embarrassing, frustrating meltdown of our city that Southampton was allowed to sleepwalk into the mess; a mess that no one seems to have reacted to with any urgency and where those who should have swung into action – the police, city leaders, traffic control, emergency services – did nothing but, one supposes given the numbers of CCTV street cameras in the city, watch the hell unfold.

How Liverpool, our great rival as a cruise port, must be laughing.