A new fence appeared at Victoria Park in Leith on Friday - acting as a barrier to Craighall Avenue and causing controversy in the process.
Some argued that the improvised path used by pupils of the nearby Trinity Academy could have been paved for convenience instead.
Taking to Twitter, Edinburgh mum of a Trinity Academy student said: "People coming on the path under Craighall Road would just climb up the bank - the old fence was pulled over so they could walkthrough. I can't see why it was a problem.
"There are plenty of problems in that area at school start time, mostly anti-social parking, so targeting kids walking to school seems counter-intuitive. Make it easy to walk to school!"
Others oped for a tongue-in-cheek approach, with one Twitter user satirically commenting: "They could have electrified it at the very least" and "I don't even see any guard dogs or signs of a minefield."
The others, however, went on to say that more convenient arrangements could have been made, suggesting paving the path or installing steps for the students to use the clearly favoured shortcut safely.
Many even started to bet on how long the fence will last, with one user saying: "That will last only until someone turns up one dark night tooled up to cut a gap. Less than a week would be my bet."
When approached for a comment, the council's spokesperson said: "It appears that the new fence was installed to replace the broken and dangerous chain link fence, at the request of the local friends of the park group.
"The shortcut route mentioned was causing damage to the banking, and the steep incline raised some safety concerns."
