The roadworks from hell: Can they really be digging up half the country, wreaking havoc for pedestrians and motorists, ruining passing trade for shopkeepers? Why now? And why all at once? Ruth Picardie reports

It has been 'hell for a long time', says one eye-witness, staring vacantly into the distance. 'Everybody is suffering,' declares another, who has been present since day one. One man is reduced to chanting: 'Terrible, terrible, terrible.'

Are they describing the civil war in Afghanistan? The build-up to the South African elections? The tragedy of Bosnia?

No. They are roadworks victims. Their lives have been wrecked by the devastation wreaked on Kilburn High Road, a main route into the capital through north-west London, for the past six months.

It's the same story across the country. 'There is an awful lot of disruption at the moment,' says a spokesperson for the AA. 'A sudden influx of unco-ordinated cones has brought despair to motorists,' declares Edmund King, campaigns manager at the RAC. On the day we spoke, major works extended from Glencorse to Bexhill, Dereham to Llangyfelach.

Why is March the month of roadwork hell? The people of Kilburn are no longer interested. 'They'll never finish it,' mutters one elderly man as he negotiates a particularly uneven section of pavement. 'It's a total waste of time,' says John, who runs a fruit and veg stall.

There are several explanations for the nationwide chaos. One is that local authorities are not allowed to carry over road repair budgets from one financial year to the next. Anything that is not spent is, effectively, deducted from the following year's budget. Hence the period ending 6 April heralds a flurry of spending.

'It has been a bit of rush,' concedes Clive Chapman, chief engineer for the Borough of Islington, a few miles from Kilburn, and supervisor of four major end-of-year schemes. 'The natural tendency is to hold a bit in reserve in case of unforeseen circumstances. It's a bit like annual leave - you've got to cram it all in before the end of the year.'

Others blame the tendering system established by the Department of Transport. Bids for work are submitted nine months before the financial year begins; however the process of selecting bids, drawing up designs, notifying residents, subcontracting, et al, means that work often commences in the latter half of the year, only to be interrupted by Christmas. The chaos is worse this year because Easter, the busiest two weeks of the year according to the RAC, is early.

And what problem would be complete without that bastion of British frustration, the weather? By March, rain and snow have taken a heavy toll. As a spokesperson for Lambeth Council in south London puts it: 'The roads are knackered by the end of the winter.'

Meanwhile, the war of Kilburn High Road continues. Piles of rubble line the route; kerbside potholes fill with water; trenches separate sections of road. Once a busy shopping street, it is now a ghost town of cones and trenches and stationary buses and silent diggers and piles of rubble and confused, angry people.

There are two armies in this war. In a defensive - if not retreating - position is the local business community. Maxine, an estate agent, needs her car for appointments but cannot park. 'It's made life very difficult for us,' she says.

For HSS, a builders' hire shop, separated from the road by rubble and a long stretch of fence, passing trade is a thing of the past. 'I've been trying to catch up on phone work,' says the manager wearily.

The majority of shopkeepers are less philosophical. Mr Patel, who runs a small general store, is in despair. Passing trade - by foot and by car - accounts for 30 per cent of his business; it has all but disappeared. 'People can't cross the road,' he explains. Takings are down pounds 500 a day, affecting cash-flow and his relationship with the bank.

'I've lost all my secretaries,' says Mr Macaulay, who runs Star Brilliant Cleaners. 'They used to come in on the way to work. Then the bus stop disappeared.' He is cheered by rumours that the big stores, including M & S, may ask for rates rebates from Camden and Brent councils, whose boundaries converge on Kilburn High Road.

'I'm very bitter,' says David Emmanuel, who runs a small chemist's. 'The road did need resurfacing, but they could have gone about it more efficiently. Better to block off the road completely, in sections, and work evenings and weekends to get it over and done with. This is a complete and utter shambles. There'll be half a dozen men standing round watching two men dig a hole. One day they lay kerbstones, the next day they dig them all up again.' Takings are down 30 per cent; it takes him up to 40 minutes - up from 15 - to drive the three miles to work.

The canopy outside Double Save Food and Wine, a 24-hour store, is torn. 'At night, the fights are getting out of hand,' says Mr Raja, who is working the day shift. 'Instead of brawling, people are lobbing slabs of concrete. Last week we had to have all our windows replaced. The local paper said the work was finishing this week. It doesn't look like it, does it?'

Massed behind the shopkeeping front line are local residents. The man who stood in front of a bus for half an hour, refusing to move until the stop was reinstated, has become something of a hero. One shopper, with the chutzpah to double-park by the veg stall, complains that the vibrations caused by the concrete road surface have broken her radio.

Meanwhile, the enemy is trudging up and down - and, it has to be said, standing around - the High Road in yellow hats and fluorescent jackets. Employers of the contractor, Tarmac, or its subcontractors, are not allowed to talk directly to the press, but a few are brave enough to flout the rules.

Abuse from residents is one of myriad problems. 'The whole system is messed up,' says a Tarmac mole. 'Brent and Camden are at war - one wants paving stones, the other wants tarmac, neither will allow each other's diversions. Today has been a nightmare - it rained all morning and then the supply of tarmac was late, because everybody wants it at the moment. If one of the little subcontracting companies doesn't turn up, it slows everybody down. People think we're just fiddling around with the surface, but the road is in terrible condition. We've had to go right down to the concrete. We're desperate to finish it by the end of March . . .'

Roadworks congestion is costing the nation a fortune. The AA calculates that between four and five million roadworks are started each year. According to the RAC, the cost of the ensuing chaos is pounds 2bn.

More shocking facts and figures: Westminster Council digs 300,000 holes a year; in the City of London there are 200 road openings per kilometre per year. Britain's official roadworks hell is Wansbeck, Northumberland, with 2,300 holes in one year for every 118 yards of road.

'There are 20,000 openings made in Camden each year, all by utilities companies,' says one council employee. 'Half the time it's so-called emergency work - usually a convenient way of doing the work badly and not telling us. Then the ground sinks and holes appear overnight like mushrooms. It's impossible to prove who the culprit is, unless you dig up the road and take them to court, which is totally impractical.'

As cable technology proliferates the situation can only get worse. A national computer register, to help co-ordinate repairs, is under discussion. 'But I can assure you it's not going to start tomorrow,' says Clive Chapman, grimly.

Others point to the antiquated state of Britain's sewers. There is talk of the bus that disappeared in the middle of Manchester when a sewer - laid circa 1870 - collapsed.

Age is also a factor for the roads. 'Mending a road in Milton Keynes is a doddle,' says the Camden employee. 'Older roads are much more fragile and difficult to repair. They weren't designed for 44-ton lorries and an 18-hour rush hour.'

How about passing the buck to an inanimate object? This is what the DoT did, by setting up a 'Cone Hotline'. Sadly, after more than 2,700 complaints, only three sets of cones have been removed. 'It's more of a con line than a cone line,' says a AA spokesperson.

Meanwhile, the war of Kilburn High Road goes on. 'I'm thinking of becoming a boxer,' says one stallholder. 'The language]' says, a customer, when the discussion comes round to Christmas traffic jams. 'I've never heard women use language like that. In lovely coats, too.'

(Photographs omitted)