Drivers faced 10-mile tailbacks on west Cumbria's busiest road, after the council was forced to close flood-hit bridges.

And, it's not known when the Kersey Bridge, between St Bees and Beckermet, will reopen - meaning all traffic heading to and from Sellafield will be forced to use the A595.

This will come as unwelcome news for the thousands of motorists – mainly workers at the nuclear plant – who have been hit by lengthy delays for the past three days.

It took Jonathan Charlton two hours to get to his home, which is 10 miles away.

"Our infrastructure isn't equipped to deal with the volume of traffic on the roads," he said.

"In addition, if we are still having issues with flooded roads then we have not learned from previous floods or put in appropriate measures or flood defences to eliminate the issue.

"Major investment is needed – a bit of rain and the county comes to a standstill."

In Egremont the town has been split in two as the bridge which crosses the River Ehen – Egremont Bridge – has closed to both vehicles and pedestrians.

Andrea Steele, who lives north of the bridge at Orgill, said: "I work on the industrial estate in Egremont so the closure of the bridge means I have to walk to work via the bypass, which at 4.30am in the morning is pitch black is dangerous.

"Surely a footpath on the bridge is okay. I'm not happy at all."

There was some relief late yesterday afternoon as the county council reopened Holmrook Bridge, on the A595.

Before it opened there had been bedlam on the roads as traffic was diverted through the narrow Santon Bridge route.

It took Graeme Lowrey nearly three hours to travel from Whitehaven to Barrow on Thursday morning.

"One bridge goes and causes mayhem on little back roads that were not built to handle the amount of traffic that uses the A595," he said.

"Personally I feel sorry for local residential people who have idiots flying down roads they don't know. I was nearly wiped out twice on Thursday by people misjudging corners."

The county council's assistant director for highways and transport, Stephen Hall, said a great deal of time and effort had been invested in repairing damaged bridges, increasing their resilience and developing an understanding of how they will be affected by flood waters, since the December 2015 storms.

"Using information from surveys and inspections, and analysing the way the bridges have been constructed, we have begun to build a picture of how they will respond to the high river levels we experience during flood events," he said.

"We only implement a closure when we believe there could be a risk to the safety of road users," he said. "We then work with the highest priority to inspect and assess the closed bridge to determine whether it is safe to re-open for public use.

"We fully understand the disruption closures cause to the travelling public and we do everything we can to keep this to a minimum, but our first priority always has to be public safety."