Gareth Johnson has warned that someone will die if the unprecedented number of severe delays at the Dartford Crossing continue.

The town's MP has held an urgent meeting with the chief executive of Highways England following the lastest jam yesterday in which motorists were held up for four hours after a technical fault with the safety system.

Commenting after he had spoken to Jim O'Sullivan, he said: "I told him that my fears that a vulnerable person is going to die whilst trapped in one of these lengthy traffic jams.

“Every few days people are getting stuck on the motorway, or on Dartford’s surrounding roads, due to a major incident at the crossing. I contacted the Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling on his first day in the job and I have explained to him that the situation in Dartford is now unbearable. I am waiting to hear what he will do."

He feared that the delays could cost the life of someone relying on medication who were disproportionately affected by the delays.

“Highways England and I agree that trying to find a solution to this ongoing problem is ten years too late, nothing has been done for so long and now a major issue is an almost daily occurrence. We are now playing catch up," Mr Johnson added.

“I have told Highways England people want action. We want to know what is being done to try and mitigate these problems.

Highways England said at the weekend the power outage caused all the systems in the tunnel to stop working and it would have been dangerous to allow traffic to travel through. The agency claims it will struggle to find many improvements until a new crossing is built, which the chief executive believes should be east of Gravesend.

Mr Johnson added; “In the past few months we have hundreds of letters from people complaining and I know they will be disappointed with Highways England continual claim that journey times are quicker with the free flow.

“I totally refute these claims, we need a contingency plan now, not next week or next year and I will be doing everything in my power to improve this situation for motorists.”

However, Labour has accused the MP of ineffective "handwringing" over the issue. Dartford council Labour group leader Jonathon Hawkes said: "This has been a failure of political leadership at a national and local level. Our MP appears to have no influence with Ministers and both Dartford and Kent Council should have been working with the government on a road improvement programme a decade ago. They failed to act then and Dartford is suffering the consequences of that failure now.

"We have a chance to get it right for the future. We need an enquiry into the delays, the road layout on the approach to the tunnel and what has gone so wrong since the removal of the toll booths. Improvements to existing tunnel infrastructure and our local road network - starved of investment for so long, need to be made a priority by this government. We need a quick decision on a new crossing and the ability to enforce yellow box junctions."

A Highways England spokesperson said: “Safety is our priority and the closure was necessary after a technical issue affected the traffic control system.

“We worked hard to rectify the issue as soon as was possible and the tunnels reopened at around 10.30pm last night.

“We apologise to drivers who experienced delays to their journey while the Dartford Tunnels were closed on Sunday and we are working to understand what happened to minimise the chances of it happening again."