End of the road for Labour's kilometre as mile makes a comeback

The mile is making a comeback in official government papers.

New Transport Secretary Philip Hammond was horrified to discover that the mile had been ditched - and the kilometre secretly adopted as its replacement - across his department.

Official documents and reports prepared by the Transport Department and its agencies referred to distances in the metric rather than the imperial measure.

Battle of the road measurements: The previous Labour government ditched the mile in favour of the kilometre

Mr Hammond has ordered officials to change back to using the mile and barred kilometres, the Daily Mail has learned. 'Common sense has returned,' a source said.

'It is barmy that the last government used kilometres when everyone else in the country uses miles.

'Philip Hammond has kiboshed the kilometre and banned it from being used in departmental reports.'

Official statistics on road lengths, traffic, freight, road casualty rates, the railways and aviation are being changed back to miles.

The mile is a Roman unit, derived from 'mille', the Latin word for 'thousand'.

It was calculated from the distance a soldier marched