DRIVERS may experience delays this afternoon with temporary lights in place while a burst sewer pipe is fixed.

Long queues are forming along the A259 between Lancing and Shoreham, near The Broadway, as Southern Water work to fix the burst pipe in West Beach.

The incident occurred yesterday afternoon, it is the fifth time in two months that it has happened.

Tankers can be seen lining the road at the West Beach estate in Lancing while repairs are carried out.

They are being used to pump out and collect sewage while work takes place.

Pictures from the scene show traffic beginning to form in both directions.

A number of streets, including Orient Road and The Broadway are known to be affected.

Southern Water apologised to residents in the area following the incident yesterday.

A spokesman for Southern Water said: "We are working on a burst wastewater main running under West Way in Lancing and are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this is causing both local residents and road users in the area.

"We fully understand the frustration this is causing people, as this same length of pipe has been the subject of ongoing issues in the past couple of months.

"Recent work has been undertaken to line parts of the main to try and prevent future bursts, but we will revisit this work as a matter of priority to evaluate what more can be done.

"Tankers will be operating in the area to support the repair so that customers can continue to use their kitchens and bathrooms as normal, and therefore it is possible some traffic management will be required once again on the A259 to allow them to operate safely.

"We are sending customer liaison officers to the area to support those affected, and wish to assure them that we will be working as hard as possible to make a repair and be away from the area as quickly as we can."

Yesterday, 11 residents in the area announced that they will be going on a payment strike and are refusing to pay their direct debits to Southern.

Nigel Sweet, 63, who lives in The Broadway near the crossroads with Orient Road, said: "We’ve given notice to Southern Water that we’re on payment strike and not paying our direct debits until a proper repair and resolution to the sewage problem is complete.

"Several other local residents have joined in to show our collective anger at the fifth sewage flood in eight weeks."

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