Pupils as young as four have to travel through a pitch black tunnel to school every day because council workmen have taken five months to repair lights there.

It is dark when Ivy Lane pupils in Chippenham arrive for breakfast club and again when they leave after school club. And most have to go through the tunnel that leads under the railway line from the school entrance to Spanbourn Avenue.

Parents and teachers say they are fed up with waiting for lighting to be fixed after reporting it to Wiltshire Council in June.

But the council says it was not alerted until September 17 and believed it had been mended by Southern Electric.

Mum Charlotte Watkins, who lives near John Coles Park, is worried about the safety of her four-year-old son, Isaac de Berker.

She said: “The only route into school is dark and dangerous. A serious accident could happen.

“There are six or seven boys whizzing down there on their scooters and they can’t see where they’re going. I’ve complained and nothing’s getting done.”

The darkness is said to be attracting teenagers to gather to drink and, without lighting, the glass left by broken bottles, as well as dog muck, has become more of a peril.

Chris Cannings, Ivy Lane headteacher, said: “I’m hearing reports of anti-social behaviour which I imagine is in part because of the dark. The governors and parents campaigned really hard three years ago to get lighting under there.

"So much of our school traffic comes through there. It wasn’t such an issue in June, but we thought ‘let’s get on to it now so it’s fixed for the winter’.”

Wiltshire councillor Chris Caswill, who reported the issue twice in October, said: “There’s broken glass and dogs fouling there and the dark is an invite to anti-social behaviour.”

A council spokesman said: “We went out the week after it was reported and found there was no power supply getting to it so we informed Southern Electric, who fixed the supply in October. We were under the impression everything was working fine until it was reported again last week.”

The council investigated on Tuesday and again found it was a supply problem so has informed Southern Electric.