EVEN in its initial stages, it was evident that the new inner ring road system being created in Blackburn was a mess -- since, as long as four months ago, horrendous traffic jams were occurring and some councillors were calling for the scheme to be halted.

But now, when new traffic lights have been added to it, the effects are even worse.

Motorists are stuck in enormous crawling tailbacks, businesses along the route are suffering and nearby residential streets are being flooded with cars trying to escape the chaos.

Yet as drivers complain of morning rush-hour queues stretching back as far as the M65 motorway following the installation of traffic lights at the junction of Copy Nook and Higher Audley Street, council officials claim the problem is temporary -- a result of bridge works nearer the town centre, over the canal at Eanam, reducing the traffic flow to one lane.

But drivers approaching the town centre hit trouble well before this bottleneck -- and believe it is down to the new lights at Copy Nook now interrupting the traffic flow.

But while any scheme that increases congestion should be urgently reappraised -- as we urged back in August -- it is also fair to ask whether this reveals a crucial flaw in the council's inner-area traffic scheme, which includes the controversial closure of town-centre Church Street.

The aim, we know, is to remove 'through traffic' from the centre, but it seems the effect is to hinder and seriously hold up vehicles actually intending to go there. After all, the vehicles in these jams can hardly be called 'through traffic' when drivers can now use the M65 extension to avoid Blackburn.

Is the council then, deliberately or accidentally, deterring car-borne commuters and shoppers from going to the town-centre -- particularly as there is no park-and-ride scheme to coax them out of their cars? It is a risk that begs an even more urgent rethink of this scheme.