MOTORISTS have been warned to expect delays along a Bournemouth commuter route as a major scheme of engineering work gets underway today.

The existing metal gas mains and services need to be replaced with modern plastic pipes in Talbot Avenue.

As a result, temporary traffic lights will be in place along a stretch of the route for six weeks from Monday, September 26.

The £1.3 million project will be undertaken by gas distribution company SGN in partnership with the Health and Safety Executive.

It will progress westwards along Talbot Avenue from the Wimborne Road roundabout towards Talbot Roundabout.

The temporary traffic lights will move according to where the work is taking place.

Side roads on the north side of Talbot Avenue - Oban Road, Roslin Road and Berkley Road - will be consecutively closed as the works move along the stretch.

Signed diversion routes will be in place during the closures.

Both Yellow Buses and MoreBus have warned the works will be a 'major headache' for drivers.

Jenni Wilkinson, head of marketing and customer excellence for Yellow Buses, said: “This is just one of so many roadworks that are occurring on the network and which we deal with on a day-to-day basis.

!We seem to have a fragile road network infrastructure locally so roadworks cause problems for everyone. It is a major headache for public transport providers which can’t just use an alternative route to miss the congestion.

"It feels like congestion is at its highest in memory out of the holiday season. Some are emergency roadworks, and many like this one aren’t directly on our service routes, but we are affected as local traffic looks for alternative roads.

“All roadworks impact on our ability to run a service, and despite putting in many extra resources it is a real challenge.”

Richard Wade, operations manager for Morebus and UNIBUS, said Talbot Avenue already presents a problem for the services.

“This particular stretch of road almost always has tailbacks in both directions during peak times, and the temporary lights can be expected to exacerbate these queues,” he said. “Also, the timing of the roadworks coincides with the return of many students, and directly impacts the high frequency U1/U4 routes, which operate every five to 10 minutes between Talbot and Lansdowne Campuses.

“We have an alternative route registered, but no doubt other traffic will make the alternatives busy too. Some delays are to be expected and additional resources for these routes are usual at the start of term for capacity reasons.

“We will be monitoring the situation closely and plugging any gaps in service. We also expect the delays to filter back in both directions, impacting our m1, 13, 15 and 17 services.”