A BURST water main in Northwich brought rush hour traffic to a halt on Friday morning and left many homes without a supply.

Both carriageways of the busy A556, near its junction with Birches Lane, flooded when a 10-inch main in the grass verge sprang a leak and police closed the road in both directions.

This happened at around 8am when many people were travelling to work and the road was not fully reopened until 4pm.

A spokesman for United Utilities said the water main supplies up to 4,000 homes, but calls were only received from about 400 customers.

He said: "We look after hundreds of miles of water mains so unfortunately these things do happen from time to time.

"We had a team there quite early on but they had to wait for the water to subside before they could start work on the repairs."

He added: "We apologise to any customers that were affected by it."

The Manchester-bound carriageway remained closed for the repairs and traffic was diverted along Griffiths Road, Lostock, but angry motorists felt more should have been done.

Roger Kuypers, of Hartford, was caught up in the queue along Griffiths Road at about 10am.

He said: "The police turned you onto Griffiths Road with no provision to get you onto Manchester Road.

"The queue on Griffiths Road went back to Middlewich Road and it took me an age to get into town - it took three-quarters-of-an-hour just to get down Griffiths Road.

"There should have been a bobby on point duty there to let traffic go."

He said one of his friends was also stuck in the tailback as he attempted to get to Manchester for a hospital appointment.

He said: "He gave himself an extra 10 minutes to get there but didn't think he'd be stuck for 45 minutes."