DRIVERS are being warned that Worcester city centre could come to a standstill again today after construction work caused long tailbacks yesterday.

Builders putting up luxury apartments on land off All Saints Road caused traffic to back up along Dolday, Croft Road, Castle Street and on to the Tything up to its junction with Little London, next to Worcester Royal Grammar School, from noon onwards.

The tailback was a result of lorries parking next to the site, on the same side of the road as CrownGate multi-storey car park, to unload concrete beams, reducing the road to two lanes from the usual three.

Later today, more materials are due to be dropped off for the development, which is being carried out by contractors for Dodds Homes.

Andy Walford, the city council's principal engineer, said: "They are allowed to load and unload at off-peak hours.

"They have to come back today to off-load but that should only take up to an hour to do.

"I think they have done most of the difficult work that they had to do.

"I went to see them and did point out that they were causing a major problem.

"They are conscious of the fact that they have a difficult site to develop. They are trying to do their job with as little impact on the city as possible."

Mr Walford added that if the situation on the roads was as bad as yesterday, he would expect the lorries to move off and allow the traffic to clear before returning to off-load the rest of the materials.