Motorists who use a busy roundabout are celebrating a victory for common sense after it emerged controversial traffic lights may not be switched back on.

The seven sets of lights on the Cophall Farm roundabout, on the A27 near Polegate, were installed in April along with new lane markings to ease congestion and reduce speed. But the lights caused tailbacks until they were switched off in June, much to the delight of drivers.

A Highways Agency (HA) spokesman said: "There are still issues with the lane markings which will soon be resolved. Once this is done, the traffic flows will be reassessed and a decision will be made as to when the lights need to be put on.

"It is recognised there were initial problems but the Highways Agency is now confident the phasing is correct. We would like to thank drivers for their patience during this time. When and if the lights will be put back on is still to be decided."

Roy Martin, East Sussex County Councillor for Polegate, said the HA should have stuck to the original design for a split level roundabout.

He said: "The Highways Agency couldn't make the lights work so they switched them off completely.

"Short-term thinking is the problem and no one can design lanes for this roundabout when there are so many streams of traffic.

"Despite all the problems it is very unlikely the Highways Agency will abandon the idea. In my experience, if they have dropped a major clanger they will find it difficult to admit it."

The HA spokesman admitted that problems stemmed from the original development plans for the roundabout.

When the Polegate bypass was designed the Cophall Farm roundabout was supposed to be on two levels, the bottom level feeding westbound traffic and the top level heading east on the A27.

But this westward extension with the bottom level roundabout has still not been built and all traffic travels through the one level.

In addition, when development plans were being constructed a planning application was submitted for a service station on the roundabout.

It was predicted this service station would increase traffic and a condition was attached to planning permission.

Developers were told when they built the service station they also had to pay for traffic signals and lane markings, expected to cost £30,000 to £50,000.

But the service station took over five years to be built and no up-to-date traffic assessments were done in that time.

This week the HA spokesman admitted figures for the new traffic lights and lanes were 'perhaps a bit out of date'.

He also admitted the lane markings are not working and will be reassessed.

Nothing will be assessed until the end of the summer holidays when traffic returns to normal.