Lengthy delays on way to work

Commuters trying to avoid the A1 were caught in long tail-backs.

Mr Stevan Colley (28) of Rubys Walk, Fernwood, was leaving Newark to drive northbound to Leeds when the A1 closure was announced.

He travelled along the A616 towards Ollerton, where traffic was moving very slowly.

It took about 30 minutes for Mr Colley to reach Kneesall where he turned around after sitting in traffic for 30 minutes.

Mr Colley said: “The traffic out of Newark was fine until just before the sugar factory. It then was stop and start from there. Quite a few people also turned around. The traffic was then queueing on the way back into Newark.

“It took about an hour and 20 minutes to do the return leg.”

It took Advertiser reporter Mrs Caroline Kirk (28) more than two hours to drive from Edwinstowe to Newark on Wednesday morning.

Mrs Kirk used the A614 and the A617 to avoid queues on the A616 from Ollerton.

Traffic was gridlocked from before Averham Flash to Newark’s cattle market roundabout, and it took 30 minutes to drive a few hundred yards to the Redhouse Hotel at Kelham.

“It would have taken me much longer if a very thoughtful driver coming the other way had not stopped near the Kelham Fox to tell me to turn left and get on the southbound A1 at North Muskham,” she said.

There was congestion on narrow country lanes as drivers tried to get around the A1 closure.

An articulated lorry and a truck became stuck in ditches between Norwell and Carlton-on-Trent.

Mr Nigel Geeson, of Retford, got his truck stuck after avoiding a lorry coming the other way. A farmer used his tractor to move Mr Geeson’s vehicle.

He said: “I didn’t stand a chance. I don’t know how the lorry even managed to get down the road.”

Mr Geeson said it took about 45 minutes to get from Retford to Carlton-on-Trent.

By mid-morning police were at either end preventing large vehicles using the narrow road.