When council workers arrived to paint fresh road markings outside the locked gates of Penn Fields school in Wolverhampton, residents were left perplexed – because the school was bulldozed three months ago.

Staff from the authority’s highways department closed a lane on the busy Birches Barn Road for several hours last week in order to paint the 90-metre (300ft) warning – which reads “School keep clear” – apparently without noticing the barren plot where the school once stood.

Penn Fields school moved to a new £45m campus across the city earlier this year, and the old site was razed.

The Labour-led authority, which recently rebranded itself as a “confident, capable council,” has launched a review of its procedures to ensure the mistake does not happen again.

Councillors and local residents have branded the marking a “scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money”. Conservative councillor Paul Singh said the incident was indicative of the authority’s “total incompetence”. “I find it astonishing that staff could be sent on this job without anyone noticing the school wasn’t there any more,” he said.

Residents had previously asked for calming measures to be put in place to slow the speed of cars travelling down Birches Barn Road.

The flattened plot where Penn Fields school used to be. Photograph: Patrick Mulvaney/Caters News Agency

Local resident Jack Roberts, 89, told the Wolverhampton Express & Star: “The council has known about the school being demolished for months, so this is ridiculous. It’s a waste of money and baffles me completely.”

Another resident said: “The council really needs to explain why they’ve used manpower, time, and probably council taxpayers’ money to paint these pointless lines on the road.”

Councillor Steve Evans of Wolverhampton city council said the council maintains around 470 miles of roads across the city. “Occasionally mistakes do happen,” he said. “Clearly this remarking, which was carried out as part of routine maintenance work in the area, was completed in error and we will be reviewing our procedures to ensure it does not happen again.”

