TEMPERS were close to boiling point after gas workers started digging up one of the busiest roads in the county – without telling anyone.

Thousands of commuters and road chiefs at Worcestershire County Council were left in the dark by National Grid, after its engineers pitched up on the A449 Worcester to Malvern main road at Powick at about 8am on Tuesday.

Tailbacks extended from Powick to Newlands in the Malvern direction and there was further chaos at the Whittington roundabout with reports of vehicles three abreast on the island itself.

The gas firm said it had been called out by a concerned member of the public to “a deep rut” in the tarmac it had laid as a temporary patch in between periods of on-going gas works.

While workers were making repairs they put up automated traffic lights, allowing one lane at a time to pass.

National Grid is spending millions upgrading the gas mains supplying homes in the area and says new pipes will be good for a century.

The company admitted it did not tell Worcestershire County Council it had dug up the road, until 10 hours after first arriving on site at 9pm the previous evening.

The council had no time to warn drivers to take alternative routes before rush hour.

To the relief of drivers the temporary lights were gone by the following morning.

Jon Fraser, the council’s customer and community manager for highways, said staff worked with National Grid to keep disruption to a minimum once they were informed.

Insiders at the council were frank, saying there had been “several robust telephone conversations” with the engineers at National Grid.

Jane Taylor, of National Grid, said: “Because it’s a busy road, we’ve only been working at the weekends and then putting a temporary tarmac fill during weekdays.

“This time, the temporary fill failed due to sheer volume of traffic.

“Our people needed to get the traffic lights up quickly to get this re-laid so we were not able to notify the council until this morning.”

National Grid has one more scheduled weekend of work over October 6/7, and then it will have completed the Powick stage of works.