An apology has been sent to people living and working in March after a week of road congestion misery.
Temporary lights caused traffic mayhem while National Grid fixed a gas leak on the corner of Darthill Road and Dartford Road.
The lights remained in place for six days longer than necessary when the repair job was finished but there was a wait until contractors could come out to fill in the holes in the road.
A National Grid spokesman said: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to motorists while this essential work took place and to thank people for bearing with us.”
National Grid engineers repaired leaks on the gas main on Thursday (24) and work to fill in the excavations and resurface the road was finished on Wednesday (30), the spokesman said.
“The work has now been complete and road flow should now be as normal.”
A leaked document shows that a National Grid works supervisor promised Cambridgeshire County Council Highways that they would clear the site by Easter Saturday at the latest.
The document says that: “It should have been obvious to anyone with any knowledge and experience that this was a job to prioritise and complete at the earliest opportunity, with no lost time in between phases of works operation, and with the implemented temporary traffic management system managed to optimum efficiency to minimise delays and disruption.”
Councillor Kit Owen, who urged for the mayhem to stop, said: “I’m delighted at the rapid response once I put in a call to complain.
“For hundreds of people living and working in the town though this caused unnecessary chaos.
“This could have been done last week, instead of putting people through such traffic hell.
“At its worst I was stuck in a queue of traffic backing up to the Manea junction where both Wimblington road and the bypass was grid locked.”
Contractors dug four shallow holes and set up temporary traffic lights in March town centre until they were ready to fix the gas leak.
A spokesman for Cambridgeshire County Council said their inspector spoke to contractors, National Grid, in order to ask them to improve traffic management.
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