An ambulance heading to an emergency call was held up due to a road closure.

The ambulance crew was heading from the Maryport direction along the B5300 on Friday lunchtime when it came up against the emergency road block near Dubmill Point.

The crew was forced to stop and ask a bystander for directions to reach the other side of the 1.2km closure.

A spokeswoman for North West Ambulance Service said the patient's treatment was not affected by the hold up.

She said: "We are notified of road closures and the information is fed back to ambulance crews in the area as quickly as possible so that alternative routes can be made.

“On this occasion, the ambulance crew came from outside of the area and therefore unaware of the closure. However, due to other resources being dispatched at the same time, there was no delay to the patient as a result of the road closure.”

An emergency closure was put in place on the B5300 on Wednesday, February 20 after an inspection found coastal erosion had left the road unsafe.

RELATED: MP calls for urgent action over coast road

Inspectors found the land between the carriageway and the drop down to the beach had reduced to only 2.9m wide. At a previous inspection just before Christmas it was 4.8m wide.

Cumbria County Council is awaiting permission from the Marine Management Organisation to install rock armour along that section of coast and reinstate the bank, which it hopes will protect the road for another 20 to 30 years.

Workington Labour MP Sue Hayman has called for urgent Government action to address the problem.