A motorway has remained closed for a fourth day for emergency roadworks due to a burst water main.

The M26 is shut London-bound, between Junction 2A for Wrotham and the M25 Juntion 5 at Sevenoaks, so South East Water engineers can carry out repairs.

The road has been closed since about 1.30pm on Monday, (July 10), with a diversion in place via the M20 and M25.

National Highways are now advising road users the closure will remain in place throughout the day today (Thursday).

Operations manager, Joe Parkinson, said: "We understand the inconvenience this is causing to those who regularly use the road.

“But we are currently in a holding pattern and are unable to assess or carry out any repair until our partners at South East Water have completed their work.

“We want to warn road users that the closure will remain in place throughout the day today.

"As soon as we are in a position to work, we have contractors on standby and ready to assess and carry out any necessary repair so we can ensure the road is safe to use and it can be opened at the earliest opportunity."

The work has had major knock-on effects for drivers, with increased congestion heading towards J3 of the M20 at Swanley Interchange this morning.

National Highways, which says there is no estimated time for completion of the work, has also warned drivers are facing delays on the M20 from Junction 2 to Junction 1.

There have also been delays on the A2 and M2, stretching back to Junction 3 at Chatham, throughout the week.

There is further congestion and 40 minute delays on the A2 Strood due to traffic avoiding M20 closures from the closure – fom the A2 London-bound (Strood) to J2 of the M25 (Dareth Interchange) at Dartford.

The repairs could also leave up to 100 people in Otford without water while a second valve is being installed.

Ross Rayner-Murray uses the road every day to get to work, and said yesterday (Wednesday): “It’s been closed nearly three days and I’ve been taking the long diversion, so I thought it must be serious but when I drove past today there was nobody doing any work.

“All the machinery is there but there is no one working there except one guy taking pictures of something.

“It’s been causing mayhem on the M20. It’s just frustrating when you go past and there’s nobody even there – it’s unacceptable.”

Nick Bell, head of operations at South East Water (Kent), added: “Once water is flowing again through the pipe, we will then have to reinstate the working area beside the westbound carriageway.

“We have dug down in excess of three metres to reach the pipe, and built protective shuttering within the excavation to keep the repair crew safe from extremely unstable ground conditions.

“When we have finished, National Highways will carry out any necessary resurfacing to the westbound carriageway so it can ensure the road is safe to reopen.

“We would like to again apologise for the traffic issues and any interruption in water supply while this work is being carried out.”

South East Water technicians say they have cut in a new valve on a pipe running across the London-bound lane of the motorway.

They add this had to be closed to protect workers due to the repair being next to the hard shoulder and near heavy machinery.

The South East Water website adds: “We’re currently working around the clock to fix a burst main on our network which is located in the M26 motorway area.

“This is proving to be quite complex due to the location of our apparatus on the network being in an area overgrown with vegetation.

“Unfortunately this means we can’t give you an estimated completion time at the moment, but we are working hard with National Highways to clear the area and resolve this issue as soon as is possible.”