AFTER more than three months of delays, roadworks in a village near Worcester are underway and should be finished in a matter of days, according to a Wychavon District Council official.

The Worcester News previously reported how works to resurface the road in Fernhill Heath had been delayed by the surprise discovery of a gas main.

The work at the junction of the A38 Droitwich Road and Hurst Lane is being carried out by David Payne Homes in return for permission to build a new housing development called Hindlip Gardens.

For more than two months, David Payne Homes stopped the roadworks while it waited for National Grid to carry out work on the gas main.

However, National Grid, which is responsible for the main, said it had not been notified about having to carry out the work.

Engineers were eventually sent to the site at the beginning of March to lower a standpipe below the ground.

Since then, Graeme Duerden, principal planning officer at Wychavon District Council, said additional work to reinstall street lighting has also been carried out.

"It (the roadwork) was due to be completed on about March 26 but the electricity board was going out to re-install street lighting, which is the information we were given," he said. "There has been a slight over-run but they (David Payne Homes) is on to completing the works as we speak. It shouldn't take too much longer."

Nobody from David Payne Homes was available for comment.

Edna Carter, who has lived in Hurst Lane for 19 years, said she was glad it was being done at last.

"They're getting on with it now," she said. "It was mid-March before they started work, but they are doing it now, so hopefully it won't be too long before they finish now.

"It was just sitting there with the barricades up but nothing doing for three months."