Four consecutive overnight closures of the Thanet Way will be enforced from today, as engineers work to fix subsidence problems on the dual carriageway.

The key route is to be shut coastbound at Whitstable from 8pm until 6am each night until Thursday.

Highways bosses were forced to introduce a lane closure on A299 Thanet Way at the end of last week when subsidence issues arose - caused by the expansion and shrinkage of the underlying clay.

With the road down to one lane, motorists have suffered tailbacks on the approach to Whitstable from Brenley Corner.

The stretch by Dargate services, before the carriageway drops down to one lane, has become congested at peak times.

In an effort to try and jump the queues, impatient drivers trying to take a bogus shortcut have caused bottlenecks on surrounding country lanes.

Rather than wait in slow-moving traffic on the approach to Dargate services, motorists are filtering off the Thanet Way onto Waterham Road and Highstreet Road.

But the one-mile detour simply brings them back out into the queues by the BP garage.

Kent County Council (KCC) says the lane closure is in place to "protect road users" and hopes the subsidence issues will be resolved later this week.

A spokesman said: “We are aware of issues impacting upon part of the Thanet Way road surface.

“There is no sinkhole or voids in the road. Instead, this issue has been caused by the expansion and shrinkage of clay, which makes up the underlying soil in this area.

“A lane closure has been put in place to protect road users on this stretch until overnight resurfacing works can be completed later this week.

“Going forward, the Department for Transport has given KCC £4 million to work on sections of this road to reduce risk of this happening in the future.”

The overnight closures - starting tonight at 8pm - will take drivers off the Thanet Way at the Whitstable off-slip.

They will then be taken along the Old Thanet Way before being able to rejoin the new Thanet Way at the next access point 0.7 miles away at the Benacre on-slip.

In 2016/17, KCC spent five months repairing 10 miles of the Thanet Way between Dargate and Marshside.

The uneven surface was improved during the large-scale project. However, subsidence issues have again returned.

Frustrated road users have hit out at the problems, with people questioning why the problems were allowed to escalate.

Commenting on Facebook yesterday, Damian Hughes said: "Absolute joke they only had this lane closed not long ago to redo all the drainage. It's been sinking for ages should have been sorted out long before it got this bad."

Meanwhile, Monkshill Road resident Sarah Fowler, is frustrated with the impatient drivers trying to weave their way through Waterham Road and Highstreet Road to avoid the queues.

She said: "The country lanes are quite narrow and passing can be quite difficult. You've got ditches on both sides.

"Some drivers have been bombing along here and it's frustrating - they get no gain from it and it just causes a bottleneck when they try and get back on the Thanet Way.

"I'd like KCC to put signs up saying 'local access only', stopping drivers from coming down here.

"People have been doing it for the 23 years I've been here. If there are roadworks, people go for an attempted shortcut but it doesn't work."