China 2

Chinese council officials at Xiían, in Shaanxi province in western China saved a small fortune on relocating residents in a block of flats by simply cutting this eight lane highway down to four.

By squeezing the highway into fewer lanes, it meant that the block of flats was left on the place where the highway should have been, saving a small fortune in the process.

Local resident Shing Su said: “We all lived in another area where they were building the Daming National Heritage Park, and they promised to put us up in a new, modern block of flats, so we ended up here. But we had only been here a few months when they found that they had built one block to many, and that it was on the place where there was supposed to be a new highway.”

The local council then started negotiations with the tenants, but with their new, modern flats they wanted even more compensation, and after several months of failed negotiations, the council simply gave up and built round the problem.

But the waist thin road has been branded a waste as it has done little to solve the problem of rush hour congestion that it was designed to solve.

And Mr Shing added: “We don’t exactly like being stuck out in the middle of a 60 meter wide highway, but you get used to it.

“If they make a decent offer most would move, but its hard as it seems we had only settled here when we were asked to move.”