MOTORISTS faced travel chaos as wild horses were seen running along A127.

Three horses were running along the carriageway Southend bound at about 9am this morning.

Emergency services were in attendance and shut the road in both directions for around one hour.

Traffic was queuing back to the Fairglen junction.

The incident left people late for work today.

An office working who works in Southend but wished to remain anonymous said: “I was a quite late for work, the traffic was queuing quite badly at Flairglen when I was on my way to work.

“I had no idea what was causing the problems until I heard on the radio about the horses.

“In the end I turned around and went back towards the A13 to get to work that way.”

A garden centre worker said he saw a horse in the road on his way to work.

Roger Keyes, 73, from the Slatford Nursery and Garden Centre on the A127 said: “I was driving through just after 9am and I think the emergency services were just clearing up then.

“I was a few minutes late for work but not too late, it was probably around five minutes, the police were ushering traffic through and by this time one lane was closed.

“Its not the sort of thing that you usually see on your way to work and I have never known of anything like this happening in the past.

“I have no idea where the horses came from or anything like that. The horse I saw was being held by a man and was tided securely with ropes for the man to hold onto.”

A petrol garage worker said that he could see drivers were stuck in traffic.

Toy Adeduro, 21, who works at Autohalt service station on A127 said: “I saw three horses running along the road.

“I think that two horses were stopped and caught on the road and the central reservation was opened up to get the third horse off the road.

“I couldn’t see how far the traffic went but where I was people for stuck for one hour.”

Three fire crews were called to help to catch the horses, two fire crews from Rayleigh Weir fire station and one crew from Leigh fire station attended.

A spokesman for Essex Fire and Rescue Service said: “Firefighters were called to a loose horse on the central reservation on the Southend bound carriageway of the A127 at Rayleigh Weir.

“Crews managed to get the horse to a place of safety before leaving the incident scene with Essex Police at 9:09am.”

A spokesman for the RSPCA said the RSPCA were not called to the incident.

This is not the first time that horses have been seen running along the A127. Back in February two Shetland ponies were seen running along the road.

Emergency services were called then and closed the road while the area was made safe.