DELAYS for motorists on the A590 have been criticised as ‘beyond a joke’.

Hour-long delays were reported today after roadworks on a winding section of the eastbound carriageway past Greenodd roundabout.

A number of councillors from Barrow, Walney, Dalton and Ulverston were late arriving for a budget meeting of Cumbria County Council in Kendal.

Among them was Conservative group leader Cllr James Airey who used the meeting to call for “urgent talks” and said the council needed to be “stronger” with Highways England.

Cllr Airey said: “What we had on the A590 today was a poor chap stood with a traffic light and no work going on in the 100 yards between.

“There was no work whatsoever being done. I think a manhole cover had been lifted off but apparently, that had been going on for many hours since Wednesday.

“This isn’t a moan about sitting in traffic lights for just  10 minutes, I was there an hour. Traffic was building up and it’s just beyond a joke to be quite honest.

“You had people shooting around all the rat-runs and that brings a risk of accidents.”

Cllr Airey added: “It’s inconvenient enough for us coming to this meeting but in terms of the impact on people who seriously need to be somewhere, and the impact on businesses – it’s a very regular occurrence.

“When companies come in and do the road works of an evening between 8pm and 6am, the impact is very minimal on motorists, and we can live with it.”

Keith Little, the cabinet member for highways, said the road was the responsibility of Highways England and the roadworks were not those of the county council.

He said there had been a number of complaints and that Barrow councillor Anne Burns had “bent his ear” about it.

Cllr Little said: “I spoke to the highways manager in Barrow and he informed me that the works had not been put on our system by Highways England.

“It should have been put on our system that this work was going to be done. We have an agreed system with them that they can’t and shouldn’t be doing work on the highway without letting us know.”

Cllr Little agreed to arrange for the council’s head of highways to meet with Highways England.

A Highways England spokesman said: "BT Openreach has been working along this section of the road this week and when we investigated issues with the temporary traffic signals we discovered they weren't being operated as we requested - including that they be staffed to minimise needless queuing.

"We have raised our concerns with the company as a matter of urgency and will also raise this at the earliest opportunity at the newly re-established forum the county council is leading."

When contacted by The Mail, BT said it had not been able to find the roadworks on its system and was therefore unable to confirm whether it had any responsibility or not.