TRAFFIC has been delayed in the city centre this morning due to Severn Trent Water (STW) workers being in London Road.

STW has explained that the work was meant to have finished yesterday, but ran over into today.

Worcestershire County Council has tweeted about the problems, saying it has led to a "difficult morning for traffic".

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The authority's tweet initially said it was emergency work but they later clarified it is in fact overrunning work.

Worcestershire Highways said: "We've now been informed that it's not emergency work, but rather overrunning work that was meant to have been completed by Severn Trent at this point.

"We're speaking to the relevant people involved to ensure the issues are resolved."

There are temporary traffic lights near the junction for Waitrose, and motorists are reporting tailbacks into the city centre and delays over 90 minutes in the area.

Andrew Simmons said: "Traffic is horrendous as now working at the top of London Road, queues over river, Deansway, Sidbury and traffic is stopped - one hour Lower Wick to Tolladine."

A spokesman from the water company said: "We’d like to apologise to everyone who’s been affected this morning.

"The work should’ve been completed yesterday but unfortunately ran over.

"We were carrying out some planned work to help our network run smoothly in the area but can only apologise to commuters."

Over the weekend we reported that the authority's cabinet member for highways Alan Amos had thanked drivers and pedestrians for their patience throughout a near-three month project in Sidbury to replace out-dated traffic light signals.

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The £2 million scheme, which also involved extending approach lanes and the installation of a new signal-controlled pedestrian crossing, had caused heavy tailbacks during peak times, started on June 17.

The last update was that there was only some minor resurfacing, kerbing and calibration to be completed.