Thieves are delaying a £150 million scheme to widen a main stretch of Black Country motorway by stealing and damaging cables.

Urgent work is now being carried out on the M6 between junctions 10 and 10A overnight, sparking anger from families living close by in Beechdale, Walsall, who claim they are now forced to put up with noise 24 hours a day.

Highways Agency spokesman Anthony Aston said: “These works were unplanned and followed damage to, and theft of, cables.

“This meant that we were forced to re-site the cables to the central reservation along this entire stretch of motorway.

“Although this is not noisy work in itself, we have had to close lanes in order to do the work and residents may have heard traffic cones being dropped and collected.”

Jim Sargent, aged 37, a railway signalling engineer, who lives with his wife, Tracey, 38, in Crompton Close, said his family was suffering as a result.

The father-of-two said he was promised by the Highways Agency that there would be three occasions before Christmas when workers would need to continue overnight, but said they had been working overnight for the past two months.

He said: “It’s been near enough every night. They are working pretty much 24 hours a day. It reached levels where there was no way you could shut your eyes.”

The complaint is one in a long line involving the works. The saga began when trees shielding homes from the carriageway were chopped down to make way for emergency refuge areas.

It has been claimed that rats were being forced from their nests and heading towards householders’ properties, a problem the Highways Agency said could be due to rubbish dumped in the area.

The work is due to be carried out on the motorway between Junction 8 for the M5 and Junction 10a for the M54 for another year.

When complete, drivers will be able to use the hard shoulder during the busiest times of the day along the stretch.