A major West Cumbrian road will be disrupted by roadworks for four days, while United Utilities carry out emergency works.

The A595 at Winscales will have temporary traffic lights between January 24 to January 27, while works are carried out to fit water leak detection devices.

The new logger devices are part of a ‘listening project’ scheme that United Utilities have rolled out across the UK.

In Cumbria they are installing special acoustic loggers called “hydrophones” which sit in the flow of water and can listen for leaks. When the noise waves of leaks are detected the loggers send an alarm to United Utilities’ integrated control centre. Analysts can then send an engineer to pinpoint the leak and raise work for it to be repaired.

A spokesman for United Utilities said: “We need to do some work to the water pipe to install one of these special hydrophones, so that is why we need these temporary roadworks. Once the device is installed it will be working away night and day, letting us know if there are any leaks we need to repair.”