BUS passengers were late for work, school and college this morning (June 19) after being forced to wait almost an hour for one of the Black Country’s busiest services – because of traffic chaos in Birmingham.

Commuters using the popular number 9 bus from Halesowen to Stourbridge, via Lye, had to wait nearly an hour between 8am and 9am on Tuesday morning.

The service usually runs every nine minutes but the delay was caused by issues from the buses’ starting point in Birmingham City Centre.

A temporary traffic light failure in Broad Street – one of Birmingham’s busiest streets – left the road in gridlock, with vehicles at a standstill for almost half an hour.

Buses were diverted and the congestion finally eased just before 9am – but a knock-on effect was felt across the number 9 route, which takes more than an hour to get to Stourbridge at peak times.