Broken traffic lights

Traffic lights have been there for years, they seem fairly pointless as cars could just go around. The house needs fixing, i cant understand how someone doing up their house can shut down a road for 5+ years, surely they should have done what they need to do by now. It does seem as if the lights are only needed for people going up or down station road, so its alot of lights for one problem. They are stuck on red this morning, going from uttoxeter towards stafford, traffic was backed up way past the castle.