Blackburn with Darwen Council said it has removed road works on a busy road and revoked a contractor's permit.

It follows concerns that works on the Bolton Road at Ewood were causing long delays for drivers. Traffic on the road has now returned to normal but the pelican crossing is still out of action. This was due to be switched back on later today (Tuesday).

Work has begun on the A666 on Monday to provide an electrical connection to The Fernhurst's new EV charging infrastructure.

The council said they had been working with the contractor for some time in the lead-up to these works to finalise traffic management arrangements, associated manual control of the traffic management and timing of the work to avoid clashes with Blackburn Rovers.

Blackburn with Council said: “With the two-week break before the next home match, this week was agreed for this work to be completed.

“Unfortunately, the traffic management contractor failed to remain on site after setting up the temporary lights. As a result, delays of 49 minutes were recorded, which is completely unacceptable.

“We notified Fulcrum of this, and they quickly acted to get a traffic management operative back to site. Unfortunately, the operative decided he was done after half an hour and left site.

“Therefore, we have decided to revoke their permit to work and instructed them to close down the site ASAP.”

The council said it will ‘not be looking to welcome these works back on the network anytime soon’ and will look towards the February half-term following discussions with the contractor.