A section of the Holloway Road will be shut during Arsenal home matches until mid-June, transport bosses have announced.

Islington Gazette: 'Chaos' at Highbury Corner as the temporary traffic lights break down. Picture: David Child'Chaos' at Highbury Corner as the temporary traffic lights break down. Picture: David Child (Image: Archant)

Contractors will spend the Easter weekend demolishing part of the Highbury Corner Bridge, which sits underneath the A1, and will be rebuilding it until mid-2018. For safety reasons they plan to divert traffic to the west of Highbury Corner during matches until more of the road is open.

The affected section is between Highbury Corner and Digswell Street.

It comes as Highbury East’s Cllr Caroline Russell warns the Kafkaesque roadworks have left pedestrians piling onto tiny crossings without enough time to get over the road.

The project to replace a decaying section of the Highbury Corner Bridge, which sits underneath Holloway Road, has been going on since 2015. The road layout changes frequently as contractors shift pipes and cables out the way of the demolition – a similar project to the one that shut the Upper Holloway bridge last year.

Cllr Russell told the Gazette: “This feels like open heart surgery on the road. Large volumes of buses and lorries come through here – TfL needs to get focused on making sure pedestrian movement is safe and comfortable. At the moment pedestrians feel like second-class citizens.”

Last night temporary traffic lights, designed to manage road flows while the works take place, broke down – leaving marshals to assist people across the roads at rush hour.

TfL says modernising the bridge is essential as it’s in poor condition and is unsafe – but bosses are aware of problems with traffic management.

A spokesman told the Gazette: “There have been some issues with the temporary signals. But we have project managers resolving the timings to allow people more time to cross.”

Cllr Russell said the delay sorting out traffic light timings was “disappointing”.

“There are good people at TfL trying to do the right thing, but it keeps going wrong,” she said.

The decrepit section of the bridge will be demolished over the Easter weekend, but traffic will still be able to get down one lane in either direction. Replacement work is scheduled to begin next week, and will go on until mid-2018, by which time all the pipes and cables will have been moved back into place.