HIGHWAYS chiefs have come under fire for closing Bewdley bypass this week - causing traffic chaos for thousands of drivers.

As commuters faced 90-minute tailbacks for a mere three quarters of a mile journey, calls have been made to ensure the town never has to endure such heavy congestion again. slow moving vehicles at the junction of Welch Gate held up traffic for more than two hours.

The timing of the closure - a week ahead of school half-term and during the tourist-friendly Bewdley Festival - as well as the total shutdown of the 1,100 metre road for re-surfacing work has been singled out by critics.

Gridlock first hit Cleobury Road, Winbrook and Welch Gate - the main route into the town centre from the west - on Tuesday as motorists struggled to leave the junction from Welch Gate onto Dowles Road.

About 100 pupils at Wribbenhall Middle and Bewdley High School reached classes at 10am, while workers heading through the town had to call in late.

The department in charge of the controversial closure - the Wyre Forest Highways Partnership Unit - said it had received "a number of calls" from furious drivers as the changes first hit on Tuesday morning.

Events at the prestigious Bewdley Festival - which kicked off on Friday and finishes on Saturday - were also hit as evening traffic into Bewdley backed up through Kidderminster.

Spokeswoman Carole Swingler said: "We were astounded to find out it was going to be closed during festival week.

"People have been very late because they don't expect to have to get through great queues of traffic. Bewdley needs to attract visitors to the town - the festival is a good showcase for the area and all they are doing is making it more difficult for people to support us."

A meeting will be held within the week for highways bosses at Worcestershire County Council's headquarters to ask whether the closure was handled correctly.

Meanwhile, Bewdley's representative on the county council said he had previously urged the Highways Department to close the road during half-term, which begins a week on Monday.

Councillor Frank Baillie said: "That would have made the morning a bit better because the schools traffic takes up about 25 per cent of the road."

Headteacher at Bewdley High School David Derbyshire said he too had asked for the work to be done in half-term while Stephen Clee, Wyre Forest District councillor for Bewdley, this week told the Shuttle/Times and News it should have been a night-time job.

Mr Clee also said more thought should have been put into the junction at the centre of the hold-ups.

He said: "What would have been sensible would be to put traffic lights at the corner of Welch Gate which would allow traffic to move in a steady flow onto Dowles Road."

Meanwhile, the leader of Wyre Forest District Council Howard Martin said part of the by-pass should have been kept open to allow some traffic through.

Mr Martin - who sits on the Highways Partnership Forum, which advises on road closures - said: "What you do is close the left or right hand side and do it in stages.

"I think the chaos it has caused to people is totally unacceptable and will have had an effect on the local economy."

Work was timed with weather

THE man at the centre of the Bewdley bypass closure has come out fighting in response to criticisms of how the shutdown was handled.

Nick Yarwood, maintenance manager at the Highways Partnership Unit, said the resurfacing work had to be carried out before the winter weather set in.

Mr Yarwood also rebuffed claims that the bypass - closed at the roundabout at Blackstone to the roundabout joining Cleobury Road - should have been partially opened.

The HPU received "a number of calls" on Tuesday when the closure first began to bite, he said, but many drivers had begun to use the alternative route, signposted through Clows Top, Abberley and Stourport.

"We program work throughout the year," he said. "It would be good if we could do everything in the summer months but we had a full summer program and this sort of work is not suitable for months where we have cold weather.

"Half-term would be leaving it a bit late. If it had been frosty it would have stopped work and we would just be waiting for the temperatures to come up again."

Mr Yarwood said the suggestion to open one lane of the bypass had been made by members of the public since the closure, the first time the road has been resurfaced since it opened in 1987.

However, he said: "The difficulty is if we had one lane working then in order for people to go past then our site people would need to be kept safe. We would have had to put in place a whole convoy system with a car leading the traffic at about 10 mph.

"This would have led to long queues waiting to get onto the by-pass and traffic would just have gone straight into the town."