Temporary lights left up days after works end in Long Eaton and Sawley

Part of Derbyshire brought to "gridlock" by roadworks last week was left with temporary traffic lights all weekend despite the work being finished.

Drivers in Long Eaton and Sawley faced delays of more than an hour to journeys at the start of last week due to emergency works.

Once these finished, planned works started almost immediately.

But despite them completing, it took days to reopen the road.

Emergency repairs were needed on 15 April by National Grid to an underground cable near the railway station in Tamworth Road.

After these works completed the five-way signals were taken away on the Tuesday afternoon. Planned Cadent roadworks delayed by the works then started on Wednesday morning.

Derbyshire County Council told the BBC last week it had worked with Cadent to minimise the disruption from their works on Tamworth Road.

But after completing the work on Friday, Cadent left barriers, cones and traffic controls up over the weekend.

A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: "We received numerous complaints at the weekend that the works had apparently been completed but that the temporary traffic lights were still in place and causing delays to residents.

"One of the conditions of Cadent's works to carry out the job was to remove the traffic lights within four hours of their works being completed, which it appears they didn't do.

"We have raised this with them and will be issuing them with a fine for not complying with these conditions."

Erewash Borough Councillor Paul Maginnis has been calling for a public meeting to discuss the "ongoing" roadworks in his ward.

He said: "We thought we'd be getting a break from gridlock this weekend. We thought wrong.

"It was chaos all weekend for absolutely no reason.

"Someone's even vandalised the sign saying 'Welcome to Sawley' adding 'home of roadworks' which has given some people a bit of a laugh, but at the same time you're stuck in traffic when you're looking at it."

The BBC has approached Cadent for comment.

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