MADNESS - that's how thousands of motorists are viewing roadworks on some of Bournemouth's busiest routes.

The repairs are likely to go on for another four months - but highways bosses say frustrated drivers on Castle Lane West should start noticing improvements today.

Bournemouth Borough Council is working to improve traffic signals at the road's junctions with Muscliffe Lane and Wimborne Road. The work will take until next spring.

Builder Paul Smith, of Bourne-mouth, had been queuing for an hour yesterday morning.

"It's pathetic. I have to get to Weymouth," he said. "They ought to floodlight it and work all night."

Changes to temporary signalling had yesterday eliminated the four-mile queues which had previously built up from the Kinson direction - but westbound traffic was still banking up.

Mike Trevor, of Boscombe, said: "This is ridiculous. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see they could have worked this out a little better so you could have got a little more traffic through."

Emily Davies, of Castle Lane, had been queuing for more than half-an-hour and was late for work at Poole. "There are lots of cones but that's about it," she said. "I've got to go all the way through Kinson."

Muscliff councillor Ron Whittaker has called for the roadworks to be suspended and wants the council to consider working at night.

"We must immediately suspend these works to allow a re-think of the programme or, at least, remove the cones at peak periods," he said.

The affected section of Castle Lane West is used by 23,000 vehicles a day but was only designed to take 12,000.

The chaos was aggravated on Tuesday when an impatient driver drove through a coned-off area, cutting the cabling to the temporary lights. Workmen then had to down tools and operate stop-go signs.

Geoff Turnbull, Bournemouth council's group manager for engineering design, was on the scene yesterday. He said the temporary lights would be adjusted to ease the westbound traffic queues today.

He said the extent of the coned-off area would also be reviewed but added: "Safety criteria now are such that we do have to allow a margin between where men are likely to be working and the actual live traffic lane."

l Meanwhile, Southbourne councillor Basil Ratcliffe claims traders are losing business because of road works at Tuckton.

"Countless motorists who live in Christchurch and travel to Bourne-mouth every day to work and vice versa are facing misery," he said. "The tailbacks on both sides of Tuckton bridge are horrendous - it's an absolute disgrace.

Transco is replacing a gas pipe at the site.

John Cake, its Dorset network operations manager, said: "We never gave a finishing date for the job, but it will be completed as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of this week.

"The work wasn't carried out in the summer because of the congestion it would have caused."