Top of the stops - region's worst 10 roadworks

Running down the top 10 of the region's worst roadworks, DANIEL WAINWRIGHT has the only chart that counts.

Greetings queue-sitters. This is your definitive guide to the longest tailbacks, the biggest holes and the worst ways of getting to and from work this summer.

Still in the charts at number 10 it's Ring Road St Patrick's in Wolverhampton. Currently down to 20mph and one lane in the day, traffic is forced to a crawl while the central reservation is reduced and new lanes added to get buses in and out of the £22.5 million bus station under construction at Pipers Row.

It began in May and is carrying on until September.

A non-mover at number nine, the £25m tunnel in West Bromwich forcing speed limits down from 50mph to 30mph. A tunnel is being created under the island on the A41 Expressway, near the fire station, with All Saints Way partially closed.

Temporary traffic lanes have been set up along the central reservations of the dual carriageway and work this month will involve building the walls for one side of the underpass.

But there's no gain without pain and drivers are promised that when the tunnel opens it will cut traffic jams. A new Tesco store is going to open in 2011 and the project has to be finished by then in order to prevent even more chaos when shoppers flock there.

At number eight it's Newport Road in Stafford and the latest dance craze sweeping the region's drivers - the three-way temporary lights shuffle in Station Road.

Like all crazes it will be gone in two weeks but until then expect teeth to grind on a scale not seen since the Crazy Frog ringtone.

The work involves carriageway resurfacing and kerb replacement on Newport Road.

Tailbacks are stretching for half a mile in the mornings as far back as the turn-off at for Castle Way as one of the lanes has been closed to allow the workmen to dig up sections of carriageway.

If you are worried about it you can email someone called Clarence at Staffordshire County Council. But don't expect a real person, Clarence stands for Customer Roads and Lighting Enquiry Centre.

Climbing one place to number seven this week, it's the four-way traffic lights on the A41 Lichfield Street in Bilston.

There are so many red and green lights it's sure to be this summer's disco hit.

National Grid are replacing the gas mains and that's led to signals being switched off at Wellington Road and Prouds Lane and replaced with give-way signs.

The work is going on until the middle of November so expect it to get much worse in the mornings once the children are all back at school.

Number six this week has been around since July 19 and is a remix of a classic piece of roadworks misery - the red route.

One was ripped out in Wolverhampton after the stretch of no-stopping double red lines were found to have made not one jot of difference, apart from upsetting the traders.

But over in Bloxwich the town's High Street is getting the paint over its old yellow lines. Trade's down 30 per cent while the work is going on and no-one can stop close enough to use the shops.

Traffic from the direction of Walsall is being diverted onto Elmore Green Road, Sandbank and Broad Lane to avoid the main street through the heart of Bloxwich.

The temporary one-way system will be in place for drivers travelling along Stafford Road and High Street in the direction of Walsall town centre.

All the work is meant to be finished by the autumn.

Still at number five after longer in a chart than Frankie Goes to Hollywood's obscene 80s hit Relax it's the Burnt Tree Island.

It's been more than a year since this £12.3m project took the charts by storm and went straight in at number one. The island is being ripped out and replaced by traffic lights in a scheme set to last the best part of another year.

But it's caused loss of trade for nearby shops, left pensioners unable to get into town and turned a commute to Birmingham into a journey so long and epic your office might ask the police to put out a missing person's appeal.

Two businesses nearby have shut and convenience store Lifestyle Express is losing £1,000 a week.

Others are reporting a rosier picture with the Toby Inn, right by the island, now doing well after putting up new signs reminding customers they are open as usual. Although it's probably been helped by the length of time drivers have to sit still, staring at the pub and wondering why they're waiting in a traffic jam instead of tucking into a hearty lunch.

Down one to number four is the £1m month-long scheme in Sedgley.

It's another release on National Grid's greatest hits collection of gas main replacements.

The stretch from Bilston Street and High Street towards Mill Bank is a gaping hole and there are more of those temporary traffic lights in the Bull Ring. Mill Bank will be closed for two days on August 15 and 16. From August 22 one lane will be closed on Dudley Street heading out of town between Bull Ring and Vicar Street.

A new entry at number three this week is Willenhall Road and the absolute opposite of a dance sensation - the complete standstill.

Queues are stretching more than a mile back up to Horseley Fields like a Conga train and anyone trying to get home for dinner might as well accept it's going to be in the dog by the time they crawl in, exhausted and dishevelled.

It isn't helped by work along the Wednesfield Road which is being resurfaced. Drivers who live on the Wolverhampton-bound side of the road are finding they cannot turn right and instead have to go all the way up to the city's ring road, turn round and come back just to be able to get towards Wednesfield and New Cross Hospital.

At number two it's Severn Trent and the one-way system on Goldthorn Hill in Wolverhampton affecting a 218 yard (200m) stretch between Penn Road and Rookery Lane.

It's already gone gold for the police who are dishing out £30 fines to drivers taking illegal shortcuts through Goldthorn Avenue

It's all part of a £4 million scheme to replace water mains across Wolverhampton which means this isn't a one-hit wonder.

Two diversion routes are in place throughout the work, with drivers taking very much the scenic route from the city centre out along Ring Road St Marks, Chapel Ash, Merridale Road, Bradmore Road, Trysull Road, Oxbarn Avenue and Warstones Road, rejoining the A449 at the Lloyd Hill roundabout.

The traders have lost 25 per cent of their trade.

Unshaken from the top spot has to be the M6 closures - it's still number one pop pickers.

The overnight closures have been happening since November last year sending drivers on a series of detours along slower roads.

The most recent have involved 18-mile diversions - on the first weekend of the school holidays - that took cars between junctions 11 at Cannock and 7 at Great Barr.

Instead of 70mph on an open road drivers have to watch out for the speed cameras along the 30mph A34 Birmingham Road which is crawling with them.

It's all part of a £150m scheme to open up the hard shoulder of the M6 in rush hour and impose variable speed limits like those on the M42.

It will eventually mean less congestion but as well as upsetting motorists the work has meant sleepless nights and disruption for the long-suffering residents of the Beechdale estate in Walsall, whose homes are a stone's throw away.

All these schemes in today's chart apart from Burnt Tree and the M6 have been timed to take place during the school holidays when traffic is apparently at its quietest.

But will that be meaningless to countless drivers caught up in the queues? Not 'arf.