The sight of workmen at a road junction closed for seven weeks delighted residents this morning - only for them to learn it’s for an additional road closure.

The junction of Forest Hill with Postley Road in Tovil, near Maidstone, was first shut on Sunday, February 16, after neighbours noticed a crack appear in the carriageway.

Traffic had been able to proceed unimpeded along Postley Road to the Hayle Park and Tattershall Road estates. But now that route is to be closed too.

After the crack first appeared, when the carriageway of Forest Hill dropped some six inches below Postley Road, South East Water engineers were quickly on the scene and discovered a leak in a water main that transverses the junction.

They fixed the burst almost immediately, but the damaged carriageway proved a larger problem, with a survey revealing a void beneath the surface.

Since then no work has been carried out as South East Water and Kent Highways have been in dispute over whose responsibility it was.

Meanwhile, motorists have been diverted down Quarry Road and Coombe Road, through the Coombe Farm estate.

Now Kent County Council’s pavement asset project manager has said the local authority has agreed to take responsibility for the repairs at the junction, with a handover taking place on site this morning (April 7).

So there may be some disappointment for residents to learn the men in hi-viz are not about to start the repair, but are there only to remove the South East Water contractor signage and fencing and replace them with KCC signage and fencing.

However, KCC said that an advanced ground survey would take place today or tomorrow “to ensure ground conditions are mapped as accurately as possible”.

This would “contribute to the details of our investigation taking place simultaneously with the repair to the highway”.

But KCC also sought to reassure residents, adding: “Now that KCC is to lead on the repairs, we wish to bring this matter to a close as soon as possible.”

“We are hoping excavation of the highway will start tomorrow (Tuesday, April 8)”

The council has since issued an emergency road closure notice, allowing it to close Postley Road to traffic for a period of three weeks.

The order says the closure is for “investigation and reinstatement works required on the highway due to large void”.

A diversion will be in place, taking traffic via Armstrong Road, Enterprise Road, Lacock Gardens, Watersmeet Close and Tattershall Road, and vice versa.

A Gleneagles Drive resident, who asked not to be named, said: “After seven weeks we hoped this was going to be things getting back to normal.

“Instead, we are going to face another closure and another diversion for possibly weeks on end.

“If KCC had just got on with it in the first place, the repair would have been done by now.”

At the time of the latest burst main, the junction had only recently been re-opened following an earlier extended six-week closure to repair a burst on a different main just yards away.