MOTORISTS HAVE been warned to expect lengthy delays on both sides of the Forth Road Bridge this weekend as resurfacing work gets under way once again.

Repairs to the northbound carriageway have been taking place stage by stage over the summer, but bad weather led to the work being postponed last week.

Bosses at the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA), which manages the crossing, confirmed the work would begin yesterday evening.

The project began in April and was meant to run each weekend until the middle of June before being suspended for the peak tourist season.

It has involved traffic being reduced to a single lane in either direction on the southbound carriageway from 7pm on a Friday evening to 6am the following Monday.

Contractors resumed at the start of this month and managed to get one weekend’s worth of resurfacing and waterproofing in before the rain struck.

They are already behind schedule and bridgemaster Alastair Andrew has already said the work will continue beyond next month’s completion date if necessary.

A progress report presented to FETA’s board members three weeks ago revealed poor weather had hampered the work earlier this year and confirmed the contractors were behind schedule.

Mr Andrew told board members, “We’ll restart work and continue until the job is done, but we’ll need a run of good weather if we’re to finish before the end of October.”

Around 30% fewer vehicles than normal have used the bridge during the roadworks with many drivers heeding FETA’s advice to pick an alternative route.

Meanwhile, a contraflow is still in operation on the M9 spur as engineers work to complete a £40 million project to replace the A8000.

The A8000 has already been closed, but contractors are still working on the M9 carriageways. It is expected that traffic jams at the Forth Road Bridge during peak times will ease considerably once the new link is fully up and running.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for City of Edinburgh Council said motorists would start to benefit from the notorious bottleneck being phased out when the contraflow is lifted in around two weeks.

She said, “At the moments, the conditions for motorists are the same as if the A8000 was still in operation because there is only one lane in each direction.

“When the new road is in place, with two lanes each way, that’s when we will be able to see the effects on traffic flow.”

Barry Colford, depute general manager of FETA, was confident the project would make a significant impact on traffic congestion.

He said, “FETA chose to fund the new M9 spur because it was the single biggest improvement we could make in terms of traffic congestion on and around the Forth Road Bridge.

“The new road is still only partially open with restrictions in place while the final phase of construction is completed.

“However, local communities are already seeing benefits, with 90% of the traffic diverted away from the A8000 between South Queensferry and Kirkliston.”

He added, “I’m confident that users of the bridge will soon see real benefits too in terms of journey times and reliability.”