JUST when drivers thought the roadwork chaos in Devizes could not get any worse... it did.

On Saturday morning traffic in all directions ground to a halt when workmen involved in installing traffic lights at the junction of London Road and Windsor Drive hit a water main.

It meant that the whole of London Road from the petrol station back into town in one direction and up to the Cannings Hill garage in the other stopped moving. Motorists heading towards Swindon who tried to go around the problem found Windsor Drive was also gridlocked.

The problems had a knock on effect in the villages of Coate and Little Horton as the narrow lanes also became blocked.

Many people took to social media to complain about the chaos. The London Road scheme had already been blighted by a digger driver discovering an unmarked gas main and soft ground.

Wiltshire Council cabinet member Philip Whitehead spoke at both the Devizes Area Board meeting and Bishops Cannings Parish Council meeting last week to apologise for the delay to finishing the work which was originally expected to end by the first week in September and cost £347,000 which would be covered by contributions from developers who have built in the area.

But now the main part of the work will not be finished until the end of September and this will be followed by several days of Windsor Drive being closed at night for re-surfacing.

The over-run is also expected to add between £40,000 and £50,000 for every week beyond the original finish date.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: "A private water supply pipe was ruptured on Saturday but this was repaired within the hour and will not have any knock-on effect on the work.

“ We anticipate the majority of the additional cost of the extension will still be covered by the developer funding (section 106), but we will establish this and the overall cost when work has been completed.

“Our engineers continue to monitor progress on-site very closely to ensure this work is completed as quickly as possible. We again apologise for the inconvenience being caused to motorists.”