BUSINESSMEN today hit out at council traffic scheme and roadworks which they say have caused traffic chaos for their customers and staff.

One company even fears the traffic jams outside their business could drive people away to less congested areas of the town.

The new lights at Copy Nook and Higher Eanam are part of Blackburn with Darwen Council's plan to create an orbital route around central Blackburn and close Church Street in the centre to through traffic. Problems have been made more difficult for drivers with road works and temporary lights at the canal bridge on Eanam -- traffic bosses at the council say road conditions will "return to normal" when these works are completed.

But local businessmen say the problem had started before the temporary lights were installed.

Tony Leech, manager of Prestige Beds and Matresses on Hart Street, said: "It's grid-locked all day because drivers are cutting down from Audley. It started when they put the new lights on Higher Audley, but since they put the temporary ones on the bridge, that's made it even worse.

"There are queues all through the day from the bottom of Morrisons to the top. When customers are on the way here and have to sit in a traffic jam they are going to think they might as well go to shops on the Whitebirk industrial estate instead. Obviously it's harder for our vans to go out, and if we have the articulated lorries coming to deliver it's even harder for them to turn round." Grahame Threlfall, a director of shoe retailer Tommy Ball, in Hart Street, said rush hours were "ridiculous".

He said: "It's not affecting our business but it is affecting staff when they want to go home. If you go down Cicely Lane there are traffic jams and if you go the other way it's traffic jams.

"Any time from four o'clock there is traffic queued up and down Cicely. I don't know what is going to happen when they close Church Street because that will make it worse." He said things had got worse since the lights at Higher Eanam and Copy Nook had been switched on: "Even if the road works were not there on the bridge, it's still a queer system"

A spokesman for Blackburn with Darwen Council said: "Motorists would seem to be using their local knowledge to find a way round the temporary traffic lights at the Eanam Bridge works.

"This work is due for completion in April when the situation will return to normal."

Inspector Judith Finney of Blackburn police said: "We are not aware of any problems regarding the situation there, but we will monitor it over the next few weeks."

What do you think?

BRIAN CRANE, a milkman from Darwen, delivers to businesses around Cicely Lane. He said: "Saturdays are not so bad but Monday to Friday, around 9am, it's murder."

He said: "I have recognised it since the lights at Copy Nook were put in. They have changed the direction of traffic. I just push out into the traffic now. You just have to be cheeky otherwise you will be there all day."

STEPHEN HALL, service manager at Cicely Commercials, Cicely Lane, said: "The amount of traffic on Cicely has quadrupled since the lights have changed. Now the traffic is just backed up at different times during the day. Last week it was choc-a-bloc right to the top. I think it's since they changed the junction up at Copy Nook. The temporary lights have made it worse but it was bad before"

JACKIE BOARDMAN, of Longshaw Lane in Blackburn, was visiting Morrisons to do her weekly shopping and found Cicely quieter than usual. She said: "I was very surprised. Maybe it was the weather and people were put off. In previous weeks it had been queued right up to the top." She said the junction at Copy Nook had made her trips across town much easier, and added: "Today has been grand."

BOB BOARDMAN (Jackie's husband) a school caretaker, said he rarely used Cicely Lane.

And he added: "I don't know if it's any worse or not."

But he said: "But I am worried about when they close Church Street because I have to take money from the school into the bank a couple of times a week and don't want to have to walk around the town with it."

Picture: Cars queue at the traffic lights at the bottom of Cicely Lane near Morrisons in Blackburn centre