THE Island’s rush-hour traffic problem came back to haunt those who have enjoyed clear roads during the Christmas and new year break.

Children returned to school today and many parents also returned to work for the first time since before Christmas.

As a result, there were long tailbacks on the usual approaches to St Helier, especially from the west.

Before 8 am, queues stretched back past La Haule from the Beaumont roundabout.After 8 am, traffic was waiting as far as half way up Beaumont Hill to get to the congested roundabout.Later today, many parents face delays as they return home as there are traffic lights on Route de la Haule with road improvement work taking place.These works are not starting until 9 am and are finishing at 4.30 pm in order not to affect the main rush-hour traffic but delays are still expected.The senior traffic and transport engineer at the Public Services department, David St George, said that Island roads were stretched to ‘over capacity’ during rush hours.

‘Today’s problems are probably due to people forgetting that the schools were going back and many people were just returning to work.

If many people left five or ten minutes later than normal, then that was bound to affect traffic flow,’ he said.