Rush-hour motorists severely delayed by roadworks in Wherstead Road this morning have vented their fury after claiming no work was being carried out.

Ipswich Star: Traffic on Wherstead rdTraffic on Wherstead rd

A two-way traffic light control put in place on Monday night by Anglian Water engineers repairing a leak in the pavement caused disruption to hundreds of commuters in the Ipswich area, with reports of traffic queuing back to Tattingstone.

Many motorists contacted the Star saying they drove past with no work being done or workmen in sight.

But Anglian Water insist the roadworks site was manned at all times.

One motorist, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “These lights added at least 40 minutes to my journey into and out of Ipswich on both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning – on Tuesday I think I moved barely 200 metres in 25 minutes, when I had an important appointment to get to.

“I could only assume there had been a serious crash, but when I reached the lights to see that there was actually no reason for them being there, I was livid. Does no-one think of the impact of these things on traffic before they chuck them up? It’s absolutely disgraceful. They were definitely not manned.”

Another said: “I got to the stretch of road between Tattingstone and Wherstead at around 8.45am and vehicles heading towards Ipswich were queuing back nearly half way back towards Tattingstone.

“I turned around, drove back towards Stutton before going through Holbrook, Freston and driving along The Strand.

“When I came to the roundabout near Bourne Bridge traffic was stacked back along Wherstead Road and up the hill by the ski slope.

“After reaching the traffic lights causing miles of tailbacks I was surprised to find there was no one working there despite it being nearly 9.15am.

“By the time I got into Ipswich the hold-up turned what would be a 25-minute journey into one of nearly 50 minutes.”

An Anglian Water spokesman said: “We are sorry for the disruption our roadworks may have caused. We were fixing a leak, and in order to keep our team safe, we had to shut one side of the road. We appreciate this may have caused some inconvenience, but it is important that we do these jobs safely. We had staff on-site during morning and evening rush-hours to try and keep traffic flowing. On such a busy road, this is not always an easy task.

“We started work on Monday, and completed the repair today. We now need to resurface the repaired area. This is scheduled to happen tomorrow, and we will get the road open as soon as we can after that, later in the day.”