The St Dunstan’s level crossing near the Canterbury West train station broke down on Tuesday morning – causing traffic problems for nearly three hours.

At 6.30am, a fault occurred with the crossing and the barriers were left down with the lights flashing for safety reasons.

Police were called in to deal with the morning rush hour traffic. St Dunstan’s Street was closed to traffic between the junctions with Station Road West and London Road.

Network Rail engineers were called to the crossing and had it working properly by 9.20am.

Gary Gaskarth, a spokesman for Network Rail, said: “Engineers were on site to identify and fix the problem as quickly as possible.

“If the level crossing is not working properly, it is designed to remain in a safe position with the lights flashing and barriers down.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused for motorists this morning. Train services have been largely unaffected.”

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