There are delays for motorists on a busy A-road today - and for the next 12 weeks.

Contractors working for Kent Highways have started this morning on the major part a £1.3m project to improve safety at the junction of Kent Street with the A228 Malling Road in Mereworth.

Traffic lights are to be installed 100m from each side of the junction where a teenage girl was injured nearly four years ago, and the road is to be widened.

Additional bus stops are also to be installed.

Currently, the western section of Kent Street is closed to traffic, with diggers busy in the adjacent field.

One hundred metres up the road towards Kings Hill, more work is going on, and that has necessitated the road to be reduced to one lane controlled by traffic lights.

The work is scheduled to take until June 22.

There were slight problems early this morning, when the wrong diversions signs were put up for those barred from going down Kent Street, but that has now been rectified.

Most of the cost of the scheme is being met by developer contributions from housing projects that have already gone ahead at Kings Hill.

When KentOnline visited the site mid-morning, the traffic queues on either side of the lights were extending to about 25 vehicles, and requiring only one change of lights to pass through.

However, the situation will be worse during the evening rush hours and could worsen again next week when work is also due to start at Red Hill in Wateringbury, one of the alternative routes.

That work there is being carried out by SGN which is replacing a gas main. It is expected to last two weeks.

The A228 takes a significant amount of traffic heading from and to the M20.

Work will be suspended over the summer fruit-picking season and resume in September when there will be another 10 weeks of delays.