Fuming drivers were left stuck in queues and facing diversions in the city centre this afternoon as the level crossing barriers failed for a second time in eight hours.

Motorists had already suffered delays at rush hour this morning when the automatic gates stopped working and had to be manually lowered to prevent a disaster.

Network Rail engineers believed they had fixed the problem and the barriers worked again until 4pm this afternoon when they stayed stuck down.

Celebrity chef Paul Hollywood was one of the motorist caught in the jams and tweeted a photo complaining he had been waiting for 30 minutes.

Network Rail spokesman Chris Denham said: "To fail twice in a day is very unfortunate and we apologise for any delays.

"Our engineers returned and found a second unconnected fault which they fixed and the barriers were working again at 4.45pm.