DRIVERS and businesses fear major gasworks will cause traffic chaos at a busy junction.

Signals are to be installed at the Woodmans Arms double roundabout, Thundersley, for six weeks from August 1 to allow gas pipes in the area to be replaced.

The work will be carried out between 7am and 10pm, seven days a week, and will affect Rayleigh Road, Hart Road and Daws Heath Road, which all feed into the junction.

There are already long tailbacks at the double roundabout during peak periods and there are fears queues could stretch back as far as the A127, to the north, and the Vic House roundabout, to the south.

Businesses based at the junction, which includes a pub and a parade of four shops, fear the proposals could cripple their trade.

Andy Wagstaff, director of the Woodmans Arms pub, said: “Putting traffic lights there is going to cause absolute chaos, there’s no question about it.

“It’s right outside our front door and we rely on people driving here, it’s going to affect us massively. We’re only just coming out of a recession. I can see us having to lay off a couple of staff as a result.”

The National Grid is undertaking the works to replace old metal gas mains with tougher plastic ones.

The first stage will see the junction of Rayleigh Road and Common Lane closed. Engineers will move on to two 100-metre sections of Rayleigh Road, either side of the roundabouts.

At this point manually operated traffic lights will be installed, which will be monitored by Essex County Council. The final stage will see engineers dig up a 110-metre stretch of Hart Road.

It is expected the roadworks will be completed in six weeks.

Norman Ladzrie, chairman of the Castle Point highways committee, said: “There’s been talk of it taking 20 minutes longer than it does already.

“If there’s an accident the whole place will be girdlocked.

“If it’s something that has to be done then I suppose we’re going to have to grin and bear it.

“You do wonder why they couldn’t have done this in phases or perhaps at night?”