Motorists gave mixed signals as traffic lights were switched on at Pembrokeshire's busiest roundabout last week.

On day one Tuesday frustrated drivers approaching the Merlins Bridge roundabout from the Pembroke Road found themselves caught up in a longer than usual tailback.

There are no traffic lights from this road and, at one point, the queue reached right back to Freystrop and beyond.

People arrived late for work and a number of frustrated drivers contacted the Western Telegraph.

Penny Rees said: "I drove in from Lower Freystrop this morning to Pembrokeshire College.

"When there is no traffic I can make this journey in less than ten minutes without breaking any speed limits. Today it took me over 50 minutes and I was late for work.

"Many of my colleagues have had similar experiences. This is the worst journey I have ever had into work even worse than before the roadworks on the Merlins Bridge roundabout started.

"Don't we deserve better than this? Recent research has shown that putting traffic lights on roundabouts slows traffic down and we in Haverfordwest have just confirmed this."

Outraged driver Richard Hughes, who lives at Greenhill Park, Merlins Bridge, said the traffic lights had added more than ten minutes to his journey.

"I cannot see the motivation behind it. It has made the problem 100 times worse. If they can put an LNG pipeline across the countryside, why can't they build a proper bypass for Haverfordwest?

"This is a total waste of taxpayers' money."

Pembrokeshire County Council said it had five calls in the first two days from people "explaining the difficulties they had and discussing with officers how these problems could be overcome".

PICTURE: Western Telegraph (WTHK5357H06).