THE mystery surrounding the failure of temporary traffic lights on the A39 at Dunster Steep on Saturday, March 14, causing what motorists called ‘hours of absolute chaos’, deepened this week when nobody would take responsibility for the incident.

More than 100 drivers took to social medial to claim the £600,000 scheme to replace 30-year-old traffic lights now causes daily gridlock and grows worse as the Easter holidays approach.

One driver posted: “Saturday was the final straw.

“It took me over half an hour to get from Carhampton to Dunster.

“All the temporary traffic lights were off and one man was standing in the middle of the road trying to sort out the chaos.”

Responding to the project’s continual problems, Cllr Richard Wilkins, Somerset Council’s transport portfolio holder, said that while he ‘recognised the strength of local feeling about the road works, the configuration in place represented the safest and most practicable option to allow the work to proceed while maintaining traffic flow’.

Asked about the incident on March 14 which resulted in four-mile tailbacks throughout the day, a Somerset Council spokesperson said: “We understand people’s concerns about disruption and recognise the inconvenience caused, which is why we are continuing to monitor and adjust traffic management at peak times and try to ensure this is minimised.

“The disruption was caused by a National Grid outage which was outside our control.

“We had somebody on-site managing the traffic as best they could while National Grid engineers resolved the issue.

“This is part of a vital county-wide programme to replace traffic lights which are nearly 30 years old and doing nothing is not an option, if the lights fail without a costed, and designed scheme which is currently underway, that would lead to even more disruption and long-term delays.”

The spokesperson added: “Replacing traffic lights is an invasive process, the road surface around the junction has to be excavated and all the ducting and wiring has to be removed and there is extensive resurfacing of the surrounding area at the conclusion of works.

“Work is progressing well and we expect it to be completed by Easter.

“We are extremely grateful for people’s patience – delays are expected during peak hours on Tuesday-Thursday.

“We are continuing to monitor and will do what we can to reduce these as much as possible.”

Asked about the claim that a power outage could have been responsible for the March 14 traffic lights failure, a National Grid spokesperson said: “I have looked at various Dunster post codes to see if we have had any power cuts reported there recently, and I cannot see any.”

Replying to earlier claims from independent traffic monitoring group Mineheadtraffic that the work could have been done much more quickly and efficiently with far less traffic disruption, Somerset Council public liaison officer Syed Shah said: “It would not be appropriate for me to comment on technical design matters.

“I hope you will appreciate that the design team have done what they needed to do.”