DELAYS mean part of Ipswich Road is set to remain closed for another week.

Four weeks of water main works started in June with the road due to reopen on Sunday.

But today Essex County Council announced the road would have to be shut for a further week.

A spokesman said: "Water main valves keep Ipswich Road closed for further week.

"Anglian Water have been connecting up a new water main, diverting the pipes so that the road can be widened to improve traffic flow around the A133 roundabout.

"Work was due to finish this week so we could re-open the road, but technical connection problems mean the company has more work to do next week.

"We now plan to re-open the road on Friday July 26."

The Ipswich and Harwich roads improvement scheme has been underway for ten months but delays mean it will not finish until next summer.

The roadworks had originally been due to be completed in winter 2019/20 but was later revised to April 2020.

However, Essex County Council confirmed its new target date is “early summer 2020”, but it could not be more specific.

Last month highways bosses announced a planned five-month closure of the south part of Ipswich Road would no longer take place.

A major piling and wall-building operation was due to be carried out from next week but this is now been delayed until January.

County Hall says the road will need to be shut for six to eight weeks instead of the three to four months originally planned.

The road improvements involve carriageway widening and making single instead of double roundabouts.