Fort William became gridlocked this afternoon when three-way traffic lights were set up on the busy A82 Inverness to Glasgow trunk road without any warning.
Northbound vehicles queued from Achintore Road to Nevis Bridge and southbound traffic was queuing out along North Road as motorists were held up by the lights at Nevis Bridge, which were also controlling traffic on the Glen Nevis road.
Stewart MacLean, of the A82 Partnership, said he became stuck in the congestion on his way to Inverness at around 1.30pm and contacted a senior manager at Transport Scotland, who said the agency would have the lights removed immediately.
He said: “The road works caused major tailbacks.
“Once again, the economy of Lochaber was brought to a grinding halt and the A82 Partnership will be investigating the reasons for this.”
It later emerged that the roadworks causing the problems involved work on a manhole that was being carried out for Scottish Water.
A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: “Once we were made aware of the long delays, we contacted Scottish Water to ask them to remove the works at Fort William.
“The work will have to be carried out in future but our operating company will be discussing, with Scottish Water, how disruption can be minimised.”
And a Scottish Water spokesman said: “We appointed a contractor to carry out a repair on a manhole cover at Belford Road, Fort William.
“We will always look to liaise with authorities, such as roads authorities and neighbours in advance of planned work taking place, but there are sometimes circumstances where urgent repairs are required.
“We would apologise to anyone affected by inconvenience as a result of such works.”