Transport for London has called for an urgent meeting with a construction firm they have blamed for late engineering work on the District Line which caused chaos for commuters this morning.

The District Line is suspended between Wimbledon and Putney Bridge because engineering work, carried out by contractor Balfour Beatty, was running behind so badly that tube operator London Underground had to intervene.

Transport for London (TfL) said it used its own engineers to carry out work on the site, but customers lost more than two hours of peak services and the work has still not yet been completed.

A TfL source said it were now calling for an urgent meeting with Balfour Beatty's senior management. The company has issued an apology for the delays.

The delay caused the worst disruption to Wimbledon Park station, where Arthur Road and the surrounding area was heavily congested with traffic.

Because large vehicles used by the engineering team restricted Arthur Road to a single lane of traffic, staff were having to direct cars themselves while frustrated commuters were turned away from the station.

"TfL must compensate commuters"

Richard Tracey, Merton and Wandsworth's Assembly Member at City Hall, said: "This is a totally unacceptable breakdown of works and most inconvenient for local commuters.

"TfL must move quickly to correct it and compensate the travelling public."

Bharat Chandarana, who runs Jay's News next to the station, said Arthur Road was "chaos" this morning.

Mr Chandarana, who has manned the newsagent for the last 14 years, said: "This is definitely one of the worst I've seen. I've talked to the staff and they couldn't give me any idea when it will all be fixed. It's chaos.

"The service being suspended over the weekend is already damaging enough to my business, but this is too much. People are very angry and I've seen people arguing with staff."

TfL: "We will be demanding answers"

Marina Stone, a recruitment consultant who lives in nearby Melrose Avenue, said she was not surprised the work would not be finished in time.

She said: "To be honest you just come to expect things like this because there always seem to be problems with the District Line.

"There's always something wrong with the service, whether it's delays or suspensions. For the last six months I've been going to Earlsfield station which is a further away but a lot more reliable."

David Waboso, London Underground's Director of Capital Programmes, said in a statement: "What happened on the District line this weekend was completely unacceptable, and we will be taking robust action with Balfour Beatty to ensure this does not happen again.

"There can be no excuses - Balfour Beatty knew the job that needed to be done and more than enough time was scheduled to complete the work, but only our intervention has prevented these works over-running even later.

"It is simply not good enough and we will be demanding answers."

A spokesman from Balfour Beatty said: “Following today’s disruption to services on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line, Balfour Beatty would like to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused to the travelling public and to our customer, London Underground.

"We are working very closely with London Underground to address the specific issues that led to this problem and make the necessary changes to prevent future disruption to the network.”

Have you been affected? Leave a comment below, call 020 8722 6335 or email: ooakes@london.newsquest.co.uk.