The roundabout closure on the A134 at Sudbury yesterday caused traffic chaos on the outskirts of the town

MOTORISTS attempting to drive into Sudbury via a busy roundabout on a main route into town have been faced with delays, diversions and road closures after a water main burst.

Yesterday morning, the A134 Northern Road in Sudbury was closed in both directions at the junction with Waldingfield Road, because bad weather had stopped workmen carrying out repairs to the road, which had to be dug up to access the damaged water main.

A spokeswoman for Anglian Water said the main had burst last Thursday evening, but initial repairs had failed to fix the problem. She said: “We isolated the main on Friday, carried out preliminary repairs and contacted the highways department, which put diversions in place and salted the pathways to protect pedestrians.”

Iain Douglas, who works on the nearby Chilton industrial area and was on the stretch of road just after the main burst, said: “The road was completely flooded - it was just like driving up a river. The following morning when I went to work, it had frozen and was like a skating rink. It could have been really dangerous.”

Recent arctic conditions could be the cause of the chaos, according to the Anglian Water spokeswoman, who added: “Cold weather can cause ground movements which can crack pipes. We do get an increased number of bursts in the colder conditions and our teams have been working all round the region carrying out repairs during the past few days. We apologise to anyone who has been inconvenienced by the problem in Sudbury.”

A Suffolk County Council spokesperson said they would start reinstating the road, subject to the weather being warm enough to lay tarmac. Highways officers were due to inspect the site yesterday afternoon with a view to installing a temporary patch if the weather failed to improve sufficiently.