Traffic chaos hits city centre

Mar 1 2007 By Mark Cowan, Birmingham Mail

A BLOWN power cable brought traffic chaos to Birmingham city centre today.

Hundreds of bus passengers were facing delays of 50 minutes as vehicles were caught in tailbacks around Great Charles Street.

Traffic queued back onto Paradise Forum and affected surrounding roads such as Broad Street and Sand Pits Parade.

Contractors for Central Networks were this afternoon still trying to repair a fault to the cable near the junction with Newhall Street.

A spokesman for the power network said the fault was found in the cable shortly before 2pm yesterday and repair work was on-going.

Businesses were switched onto a back-up system to keep them running.

A Travel West Midlands spokesman said bus inspectors were out in force trying to get services to their destinations and advise customers of the delays.

Some of the services affected included the 9, 10, 21, 22, 23, 29, 82, 87, 88, 103, 128, 129 and 138.

The spokesman added: "Bus services are running as much as 50 minutes late. The delays are very much beyond our control.

"We would appeal to customers who use these services to be patient and make allowances in the time allocated for your travel."