Flood works outside Penwortham Methodist Church “causing absolute chaos”

The flood works, which started last week, will see 33,000-volt cables diverted as part of the Preston flood defence improvements for the River Ribble.

Temporary traffic lights have been placed outside Penwortham Methodist Church and Tinkerbells Nursery and are expected to be ongoing for some time.

The strip of road has currently in place a traffic light system, meaning a single volume stream of traffic.

Long queues of traffic are taking up space leaving the road congested.

The frustrated mother whose son attends Tinkerbells Nursery said at one point it was Russian roulette trying to work out the colour of the lights.

She said: "There are very long queues morning and evening and Tinkerbells Nursery is sandwiched in the middle between two sets of lights, so previously you could not safely exit it as you could not see what colour the lights are on.

"I drop my son off at nursery every day by car as we don't live in Penwortham, and the lights were not originally really set up in a safe way."

The woman who wished to remain anonymous added: "Tinkerbells was sandwiched between the two sets of traffic lights, with no way of seeing if either set is on red or green as the lights are not visible when pulling out of that junction.

"So you had to edge out when you thought there was a break in traffic - and hope you didn’t guess wrong and meet cars coming at you head on in the opposite direction.”

"The nursery has been very good and immediately sent out an email, warning parents to take care and leave extra time, but I doubt the work will be finished by Monday."

She added: "However since the weekend the lights have been moved down the hill nearer the Riverside cafe, so it's now easier to see how to get out safely from the nursery junction. There are still some fairly long queues however."

“They have definitely moved them nearer to the Riverside cafe so they are visible to traffic emerging from the nursery - my guess is someone complained about the safety issue last week and it's been changed since then.”

What did Electricity North West say?

A spokesperson for Electricity North West said: “Engineers are working on a project which will see two 33,000-volt cables diverted as part of the Preston flood defence improvements for the River Ribble.

“The project is now underway and to ensure engineers can work safely, temporary traffic lights are being used and all of our traffic management plans have been pre-approved by the council."

They added: “We expect the lights on Leyland Road to be removed by early September and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

However, when asked if they had received similar problems from parents, a spokesperson for the nursery said they had not received any complaints, or faced any problems with the work currently in place.