HIGHWAY bosses will tackle driver behaviour as part of the ongoing Spur Road rebuild following a meeting amongst officials.

Dorset County Council officials met with highway authorities, emergency services and Bournemouth hospital representatives to assess the situation following the first three days of disruption.

The A338, which is currently at day four of the £22 million nine-month programme, is set to be completely rebuilt along the five-mile stretch of road between the Ashley Heath roundabout and the Blackwater junction.

Drivers are now being told the turn-off for the Royal Bournemouth, from Castle Lane East, is for hospital access only.

New signs are being put up following the meeting.

They have decided to combat driver behaviour regarding filter lanes along Cooper Dean as well as congestion issues along Castle Lane East.

Councillor Peter Finney, cabinet member for environment, said: "We’ve identified that more drivers than anticipated have diverted onto Castle Lane East and this is causing the increased problems at the hospital and Cooper Dean roundabout. There are also issues with some drivers blocking the roundabout, abusing the left hand filter and using the roundabout as a shortcut.

“We’ll be working with Bournemouth Borough Council to use their variable message signs to pre-warn drivers of the congestion on Castle Lane East and, to remind drivers about the appropriate use of the filter lanes, there will be new signage designating the hospital lane as access to Hospital and Deansleigh Road only.

“Dorset Police has also agreed to monitor traffic and assist where possible.”

Angry residents took to social media to voice their concerns over poor driver behaviour.

Gareth Thomas tweeted: "Amazing how some people will risk an accident to make up on place in the queue #A338 #SpurRoad".

Carl Taylor, 40, a regional sales manager from Queens Park, said the situation is "ridiculous".

"It makes no sense at all," he said.

"If everyone let each other through it would flow a whole lot smoother. The pinch points are where the roads join. Rather than having one car merge in turn, you've got five, six, seven people trying to merge at the same time which just backs it all up."

Following questions raised by the public, highways staff have confirmed they have worked every night so far, installing their traffic management plan from Sunday, seeing 3,000 cones placed along the route.

They have also said they will be trying to work as many nights as possible - whenever conditions allow - aiming to work 24 hours over six days a week while the contraflow is in place.

Night works will continue until Saturday, with a northbound closure in place on Thursday, and Friday will see a full road closure overnight - 8pm to 6am - from Cooper Dean to Blackwater.

One side of the dial carriageway will be closed and rebuilt while the other is used as a contraflow with a 40mph speed limit.

Works during the first two weeks will focus on removing any remaining trees, installing traffic management, speed cameras and CCTV. The site compound has also been prepared with a new access road.