DORSET County Council has come under fire for a failed experiment to install a new 'Wi-Fi' operated pedestrian crossing on a busy road in Christchurch.

Contractors are currently carrying out remedial works to bring the puffin crossing on Somerford Road into use - four months after it was built.

The work, which started on Monday, is expected to take up to four weeks.

The crossing was built in August and September last year as part of the Meteor Retail Park development, but it was not able to operate due to "unforeseen issues".

The county council has now explained the crossing was a trial site for an "above ground wireless link to the traffic signal detection equipment in the road".

However, after it was built, the council discovered the technology did not work properly.

Now the retail park's developers, Brookhouse Group, are finally fixing the problem, but it involves digging up the road to install traditional ducting and cables.

Unfortunately, although the Somerford Road site was an ideal site on paper and the detailed design showed no potential problems, after construction we found that the wireless signal was intermittently blocked, affecting the safe use of the crossing," a county council spokesperson said.

"We’re incredibly disappointed that this issue wasn’t identified prior to construction, and we’ll be learning from this when choosing future sites for the wireless technology.

"We’d like to apologise to residents and drivers in the area for any disruption the work may have caused to them, and for the delay in the opening of the crossing."

The crossing was funded by the developer's contributions, as are the corrective works.

But county councillor and Christchurch mayor Lesley Dedman thinks the crossing has been a waste of money.

"It's absolutely crazy that it's costing such a huge amount of money to get this crossing working. And when it does work, it will cause chaos. The crossing shouldn't be in that position," she said.

The total cost of the crossing is £106,500, including construction, contingencies and other elements such as maintenance costs.

As previously reported, a Christchurch resident claimed the crossing breached highways regulations, however the county council dismissed these accusations.

Cllr Dedman, along with fellow county councillor David Jones, supported a different traffic management proposal involving three-way lights at the junction with Wilverley Road.

The delivery of the additional puffin crossing caused major disruption when it was built in August and September last year.

The county council said contractors would "try to maintain two-way, uninterrupted traffic" through the current works area; however, they added if it proved "unsafe to continue without traffic management" temporary lights would be installed.