Thousands of people were left fuming in their cars as westbound traffic crawled along at a snail’s pace. The two-mile journey between the Ketley Dingle and Cluddley interchanges took more than an hour to cover before drivers were sent along the old A5 through Atcham.

And motorists hoping to travel towards Shrewsbury from Ketley Dingle were first sent the “wrong” way up the M54 before doing a U-turn.

The chaos was largely caused by the two-hour closure of an eight-mile stretch of the westbound A5 between Cluddley (Junction Seven) and Preston Island, on the outskirts of Shrewsbury.

This was to enable police to carry out a reconstruction of a road smash in which an 84-year-old Gobowen man was killed.

But it was made even worse by the closure of the westbound slip road on to the M54 from Ketley Dingle (Junction Six) for workers to tackle long-standing flooding problems.

Among those stuck in the jams was Ellie Thomas, 24, from Ellesmere.

She said her journey from Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital turned into a “nightmare” as she tried to take her mother, who underwent surgery yesterday, home from hospital.

Miss Thomas said: “We were on the M54 crawling along bumper to bumper.

“We were only just approaching Junction Seven more than an hour after getting on the motorway at Junction Six by Tesco.”

A spokesman for the Central Motorways Police Group said the westbound A5 had been closed while officers carried out a reconstruction of a fatal accident involving a car and a lorry.

Mr Alfred Melvyn Brunton, 84, of Old Chirk Road, Gobowen, died on September 28 from head injuries received in the collision the previous day.

Highways Agency spokeswoman Annie Harris said the westbound slip road from Junction Six would be closed for drainage work until Friday.

Traffic is being diverted along the M54 eastbound to Junction Five (The Forge) to make a U-turn to get on to the westbound carriageway.

By Peter Johnson