Roadworks that will cause months of road misery on main routes around the Black Country were today being launched.

Drivers were today warned to allow extra time for their journeys as workers stated moving in to rip up a number of the region’s busiest roads. Wolverhampton’s busy Penn Road and

Bloxwich High Street were today becoming one way, while work was also starting along the A41 Lichfield Street in Bilston and the Broadway in Walsall.

The project in Bilston will see National Grid carrying out gas mains replacement work.

Permanent traffic signals at the Lichfield Street, Mount Pleasant junction will be switched off and replaced with four-way temporary traffic lights.

Signals at Wellington Road and Prouds Lane will also be switched off, meaning the junction will instead be controlled by give way signs.

Councillor Paddy Bradley, Wolverhampton City Council’s cabinet member for regeneration said: “The A41 around Lichfield Street and Oxford Street is busy and so we would advise motorists to allow extra time for their journeys during the four month duration of the works.”

Drivers were also warned of six weeks of traffic misery  as  a stretch of the busy Penn Road becomes one-way. A 200-metre section of Goldthorn Hill, between Penn Road and Rookery Lane, was also becoming  one way.

Two diversion routes will be in place throughout the work, with drivers travelling from the city centre asked to travel along Ring Road St arks, Chapel Ash, Merridale Road, Bradmore Road, Trysull Road, Oxbarn Avenue and Warstones Road, rejoining the A449 at the Lloyd Hill roundabout.

A one-way system was also today operating in High Street, Bloxwich as part of a £3 million scheme to create a red route.

Temporary traffic lights were also going in along the busy Broadway North. The  surface is being replaced between the Arboretum junction and The Crescent near  Sutton Road.