Traffic at a crawl for sake of Bournemouth's worms

For this I apologise.
Dorset County has it trumped.
Here we are in what can only be described as difficult times for tuning bob or two, on the run up to Santaval, the annual festival of Argos and secular tribute to the memory of the late, departed, St Wool of Worth and the last point in the trading year you would want a shopping centre cut off by road works.
Splendid to relate, then, that it not actual road works cutting off the semi-conscious seaside town of Bournemouth and Boscombe but work rescuing slow worms.
No, really.
Dorset County Council wants to widen the A338 but it is bordered by important lizard habitat. Clearly these reptiles can't just be incorporated into the new carriageway as some sort of exciting anti-skid surface for traffic is reduced to on lane while corpy litter pickers round up the lizards.
A spokesman for local traders said: 'Oh fiddlesticks.' Adding that it may have been a good idea to execute this daring Raid On Entebbe style rescue in January when less people were trying to do their Christmas shopping.
This is out of the question, apparently, because the uplifting of the cold bloods must be done while they hibernate. Er, that's in winter, usually.
Now micro climates and global warming aside, I thought January was winter. No, I mean really, really winter when no self respecting slitherer, Mandelson excluded, would be abroad the blasted heath. Or even the hard shoulder.
Once again it is clear that Joe motorist is to be inconvenienced at every turn even if also threatens the South Coast's premier retail boulevards.
But at least there will be plenty of black and yellow Noddy trucks to keep the stationary traffic amused.