WORK to remove a controversial cycle lane has been completed.

Council workers worked through the night for six days to remove the Old Shoreham Road cycle lane after councillors voted to scrap it.

Starting on Monday, council staff used a saw and a jackhammer to dig up the controversial cycle route, removing the that has been a course of controversy since it was installed last year.

Pictures taken from the road near Hove Park show the completed work, with almost no sign that the cycle lane once existed.

The work was completed in two phases, despite attempts from Extinction Rebellion protests to delay the removal.

The cycle lane was one of a series of “active travel” schemes introduced across Brighton and Hove during the first national coronavirus lockdown at the behest of the Conservative government.

The emergency active travel schemes were introduced when the government was urging people not to use public transport.

At the time, Labour was the biggest party on the council.

The council received more than £3 million from the government in the first two tranches of “emergency active travel funding”.

A report before councillors last month said that almost £280,000 of funding was immediately at risk because of the vote to remove the cycle lane.

Green councillor Amy Heley said that the decision to remove the cycle lane was “shameful”.

She said at the time: “I’m scared for the future. This is the tiniest thing we could have done, a step in the right direction, but they just don’t care. It’s very disappointing.”