HIGHWAYS chiefs faced a grilling over fresh traffic woes endured by thousands of motorists in Southampton.

The £1.2m project to waterproof Northam Bridge started last week and could take up to five months to complete.

Motorists were caught in delays of up to an hour, with the fresh traffic woes coming after a number of other major roadwork projects caused gridlock over the past two years.

Labour city transport boss Jacqui Rayment had faced calls to resign from opposition councillors, who criticised her handling of major projects and accused her of “arrogance”.

But, flanked by senior highways officers, she defended her and her team’s performance at a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny management committee last night.

She said the work had to be completed early this year as it was largely Government-funded and the Department for Transport had said the money had to be spent by the end of March.

Cllr Rayment added that work had been due to start in November but been delayed after more problems were found with Central Bridge, the subject of a major repair project last year.

Scrutiny committee chairman and Conservative councillor Jeremy Moulton queried the timetable of workers at the site, who start at 7.30am and end at 5pm every day, and asked why work couldn’t be done later into the evening to finish the project earlier.

Council Director of Place Stuart Love said: “In essence working beyond the hours of 5pm you have inefficiencies when you bring in another crew, but more importantly there are issues over humidity and temperature.

“Suppliers and depots are closed which makes working in the evening less efficient.”

He added that the temperature and humidity issues meant working later in the evening “wouldn’t be productive”.

Changing the contraflow on to the bridge was discussed to ease congestion, and highways officers agreed to take away the suggestion to look at.

Conservative transport spokesman Dan Fitzhenry said he believed residents were upset as there had not been enough communication from Cllr Rayment to “stand up and say what we are doing”, adding: “From my point of view it would appear you are not in control of everything.”

But Cllr Rayment said a lot of work had been carried out to warn motorists before work started, saying that she knew “the buck stops with me”.

She added: “We know it will be difficult, that traffic at peak hours will be a problem and we have done our utmost to mitigate that.

“One of the main arterial roads into the city will be having work that will see it fit for purpose for many years.”