TEMPORARY traffic lights, put in place to control traffic during work on Bordon’s new relief road, have been stolen.

The £5,000 “temporary traffic-control box” was taken between 7pm and 11pm last Wednesday.

A Hampshire Police spokesman said that enquires were ongoing and no arrests had been made.

Sean Woodward, executive member for economy, transport and environment at Hampshire County Council, said: “I can confirm that, on Wednesday night, the signal-controller box and one of the signal heads from the temporary traffic lights, put in place for works to the new relief road on the A325, were stolen. This resulted in the signals automatically defaulting to red on the main road approaches, and so members of the site construction team had to direct traffic manually to address traffic queues until the new control equipment arrived.

“The new equipment was installed during the day and the lights were operational before the evening peak travel time.

“I do appreciate that any works on the road cause some disruption, and I would like to reassure people we are doing all we can to minimise delays as this key infrastructure - to support the proposed new town-centre development and the regeneration of Louisburg Barracks - is built. This extra disruption caused by the theft was unusual and not something we would normally expect.”

Anyone with any information is asked to call police on 101.