Drivers face delays as work gets underway on major roadworks

Work at the Arches, in South Shields, and Heworth Roundabout, on a key route towards Newcastle, got started this morning.

Some drivers have told of 'ridiculous' traffic on the A184 heading towards the Heworth Roundabout, with the problems worsened by a crash on the A19.

One motorist, Lana Young, said it had taken her almost an hour to get from her home in South Shields to the Jet garage on the A184.

The £8.1million road scheme at the Arches is aiming to alleviate congestion at the bottleneck junction of the A185 and A194.

It involves changing both the Arches and Hobson Way roundabouts into signalised junctions, and providing a new one-way link from Hobson Way to Jarrow Road.

Meanwhile, the work at Heworth Roundabout is expected to take between six and seven months to complete.

The A184 - either side of the Heworth Roundabout - has been reduced to a single lane in each direction.

The roundabout is supported on a series of concrete bridges, which carry the road over Network Rail and Metro lines.

Structural engineers detected water seeping into the bridge structures last year, and the repair work will involve the complete removal of the road surface to allow the bridge decks to be waterproofed and a new road surface then applied.

There are further problems in South Shields, with the carriageway on Crossgate, opposite the town hall, down to one lane as demolition of an adjacent building gets underway.

Several readers have been caught up in today's delays.

On Facebook, Julie Anne Stephenson posted: "It’s bad this morning."

Lisa Leyden added: "We drove though it yesterday - it was a nightmare."

Lisa Ball Jules wrote: "It took us well over an hour yesterday to get from Newcastle to Wardley! The diversions are ridiculous."