THERE’S a well-known riddle I remember from my childhood.

A man has to get a fox, a chicken and a sack of corn across a river. He has a canoe and it can only carry him and one other thing. If the fox and the chicken are left together, the fox will eat the chicken. If the chicken and the corn is left together, the chicken will eat the corn. How does the man do it?

Lee-Anna Futcher’s dilemma may have been slightly less taxing, but how does a mum with a baby son transport him and the buggy up two flights of stairs without carrying both at the same time or leaving her baby alone?

The council and the fire service rightly stress that health and safety is vital to the residents of the block of flats and that the buggy should not have been left in the lobby for so long, causing a potential obstruction in the event of a fire or emergency situation.

So what if mum had rushed out of the flat for a few seconds to retrieve the buggy, the door closes behind her and her baby is left alone.

A disaster? Probably not, but only as likely as the possible emergency cited as the reason the buggy was confiscated and Lee-Anna slapped with a £50 retrieval fee.

Thankfully, the buggy – and those belonging to a neighbour – have been returned and common sense has won the day.

Perhaps the same common sense will be used to come up with a satisfactory solution to a very unsatisfactory reaction.