One of the main roads through Cumbria will be closed overnight over the next six weeks as work is carried out to deliver £1.5 million flood resilience improvements.

Then project along the A66 at Bassenthwaite Lake started on Monday evening with work being carried out on both west and eastbound carriageways.

Highways England is working to raise sections of the carriageway by more than a metre in several places in response to last December's Storm Desmond.

In all, five sections of the route, which is a mix of dual carriageway and single carriageway sections, are being improved over the next few months in a project which started in September.

Work alongside Dubwath Beck has already started with road closures between 8pm and 6am each night – for around 6 weeks.

Work further along the route at Smithy Cottage, next to the lake itself, also started on Monday with the closure of the westbound carriageway and a contraflow arrangement installed to allow a lane of the eastbound carriageway to be used by westbound road users.

To allow the work to take place alongside Dubwath Beck, both the eastbound and westbound carriageways will be closed overnight between A66 Lambfoot and A66 Dubwath junctions.

There will be clearly-signed diversions in place for through traffic with HGVs heading east needing to use the A595 from Cockermouth, the A689 past Carlisle and then the southbound M6 to Penrith.

Other drivers can use the A595 out of Cockermouth, travelling to Bothel and then using the A591 to get back onto the A66 at Crosthwaite roundabout near Keswick. Drivers travelling westbound will need to use the same diversion routes in reverse.