United Utilities contractors left rough, temporary road surfaces behind when it finished cable laying on Eastway, Anderton's Way, Longsands Lane and Bluebell Way in February.

The firm has now agreed to fix the shoddy surfaces at the end of this month – meaning there will be five further days of road closures near a key junction with the M6.

The work will start on the evening of Sunday, June 29 and will continue until it completed, which is expected to be Friday, July 4.

Eastway will close between Watling Street Road and Anderton's Way outbound away from the city centre.

The work will then move along and motorists travelling towards junction 31a will find Eastway closed between Anderton's Way and Longsands Lane in the direction of the M6.

Then Bluebell Way will be shut from its junction with Longsands Lane towards the M6 access roundabout, with work moving on to the section of road between Anderton's Way and the Norman Jepson pub.

Workers will put barriers out on the Sunday evening and machinery will start removing the road surface.

Then, on Monday morning, it will continue stripping the surface before the surface-laying machine goes to work.

The repairs had initially been scheduled to begin earlier but have been put back a week.

Preston North East councillor Michael Welsh said he and County Hall officers had to "chivvy along" United Utilities to get a start date for the work, following complaints from businesses and residents at the state of the roads.

Contractors are allowed up to a year to re-instate roads but highways bosses demanded quicker action.

Churned up grass verges also had to be fixed when contractors used the wrong kind of soil to replant them.

Coun Welsh said: "Hopefully, this will prove the last instalment of this particular saga.

"It will undoubtedly cause disruption and annoy many residents, but there have been numerous complaints about the quality of the re-instatement, and when these works are completed the roads will be back to standard."

A spokesman for United Utilities said: "We do apologise for any inconvenience customers may have experienced while the (original) work was ongoing.

"We always aim to carry out our work with as minimal disruption to customers as possible."

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