A main road will be closed by gas company SGN tonight to allow engineers to drill underneath it.

Blue Bell Hill, between Maidstone and Chatham, will be shut completely on the Medway-bound carriageway overnight from 8pm to 6am.

Drivers are already facing lengthy delays at rush hour due to lane closures, with some sitting in queues for around an hour-and-a-half to reach the top of the hill.

Two lanes have been shut since the start of November on the Medway-bound carriageway for emergency gas repairs and are expected to be closed for another three weeks.

One lane of the Maidstone-bound carriageway was also closed yesterday and that will stay in place for a week.

It's added misery for drivers, many of who are using the A229 as an alternative route to avoid roadworks a few miles away.

The coastbound entry and exit slip roads on the M2 at junction 5 for Sittingbourne are also shut, sending drivers on a lengthy diversion. Drivers travelling coastbound need to leave the M2 at junction 3 and use the A229, M20 and A249 to reach the Stockbury roundabout.

This 11-mile route sends people onto Blue Bell Hill but now that too has lane closures, it has caused "ridiculous jams" at rush hour.

Today, it took a motorist an hour and 20 minutes to clear Taddington and the Lord Lees roundabouts after leaving her home in Walderslade at 7.30am.

Others have reported queues from Blue Blue Hill as far back as Holcombe School in Maidstone Road, Chatham, and onto City Way, Rochester, with Borstal also at a standstill at Priestfields.

There were queues stretching back more than a mile through Boxley with drivers from Medway heading for Maidstone.

The A228 between the M2 at Cuxton and M20 at West Malling has also seen a rise in the amount of traffic as motorists travel further afield, desperately try to avoid the queues.

It has caused outrage online, with one parent saying it took them an hour to do a 20-minute school run. They added: "If you do not have to go out yet, I wouldn't."

Another said: "I want to move from this godforsaken place. Peters Bridge is a curse and I want it gone. The traffic is worse than the M25 this morning."

Tracey Crouch, MP for Chatham and Aylesford, took to social media this morning to update her constituents on the issues she has raised regarding the works including the time it will take and the use of local roads.

She added: "Unsurprisingly people who regularly use the A229 are getting increasingly irritated by the roadworks, as are those who live in Blue Bell Hill who are seeing people use the village as a rat run.

"Unfortunately there is very little I can do but I have been raising concerns of residents on a regular basis with SGN and Kent County Council, who are in charge of the local roads.

"I appreciate these works are irritating, could have been timed better – i.e when the world is using A229 because of the Stockbury works or during a holiday period – but there will be a further update on the roadworks on SGN's website tomorrow.

"Plus I am also fully aware of the chaos and gridlock in Larkfield due to the roadworks there. That is an entirely different nightmare but one I can assure residents I am also working on."

The works at the M2 started on September 12 and are not expected to be completed until Friday, January 13.