HOPE could be on the horizon after "horrendous" delays at the traffic lights, near the city centre Sainsburys superstore left motorists raging.

For weeks drivers have been delayed after complications arose during work install a new signals, at the end of January, at the four-way junction on Bridge Street and Shaddongate.

Traffic had been reported backing up for nearly a mile, along Newtown Road.

Now Cumbria County Council say that further work, using "smart" technology has been installed at the junction but warned motorist that it will take a while to bed-in while it "learns" about traffic flows.

The delays have left Eric Armstrong, 68, a retired engineer from Morton West, fuming.

He said: "Most days and most times the tailbacks in working hours are horrendous, the traffic lights have become a real bottleneck, it is absolutely rubbish.

"Someone at the county council needs to be bought to book for this, it is no fun sitting in traffic and it should have been sorted out - it backs up the road for about a mile.

"And then there are ambulances that are trying to go back and forward to the hospital , it must be so annoying for them."

The Cumberland Infirmary with its busy A&E department is close by, just under half-a-mile to the junction.

Eric added: "This has been going on for about three weeks now.

"Every time they seem to do something they put up traffic lights, it is absolutely horrendous.

"This is not about me, it is about thousands of people in the community.

"Whatever they did two or three weeks ago they have made things 10 times worse, someone needs to answer these questions."

Cumbria County Council had previously brought in signal engineers from the highways department to identify a number of issues earlier this month.

Yesterday, Monday, February 17 a county council spokesman said further changes had been made to the technology on Friday, February 14.

He said: "The new technology is 'smart', meaning it takes a little time for them to learn and understand traffic flows.

"Hopefully we’ve got them sorted now, we’ll monitor it this week."