One of the town’s two bridges will be off limits to all traffic from Monday morning while repairs are carried out on the 92-year-old structure.

Parents and teachers have criticised the timing saying it will cause exam students more stress and business leaders are predicting losses. But council leaders have said there is no choice — and recommended that commuters take public transport instead.

Matthew Walker, director of funeral directors AB Walker & Son, said their staff were determined that bereaved families would not experience any extra stress, but added that disruption was inevitable.

He said: “It is going to severely impact our business. It is ludicrous, but we just have to deal with it, however challenging it is. We are not going to be beaten by Reading Borough Council’s decision to close one of the most important bridges in the area. The people that come first are the bereaved, and we will do everything to make sure we deliver the service they deserve.”

Meanwhile, school heads said the timing of the closure — right in the middle of GCSE exams — would cause chaos.

A spokesman from Chiltern Edge School in Sonning Common said: “It’s going to be absolutely horrendous. The council have picked the worst possible time to do these works and the kids are already stressing about it. We’re expecting those two weeks to be as bad as the floods in January 2014.”

And Rachel Dent, headteacher at the Abbey School in Kendrick Road, said staff had put in place a crisis management plan to ensure pupils’ exams are not disrupted.

She said: “If you calculate on an average day there are 200 to 300 students travelling from a wide area of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, then you can get some concept of what we are having to deal with.”

Meanwhile, black cab drivers were expecting gridlock as 27,000 vehicles cross it every day.

Cabbie Mr Hussain from Caversham said: “Caversham and town will be a car park. It will be gridlocked.

“When there have been issues before people get in the cab, you drive round the corner and sit still and they decide to get out because the meter is going up and up.”

Royal Berkshire Hospital outpatients, those visiting doctors and dentists, house hunters and people getting to work have all been advised to add time to their journeys. Meanwhile, both Reading Borough Council and the chief executive of Reading Buses said problems could be avoided by taking public transport.

Martijn Gilbert, Reading Buses CEO, said: “There will be 11 buses an hour on pink routes between Caversham High Street and Reading Town Centre, each with the potential to take up to 70 cars off the road and save over two miles of road space.”

A spokesman for Reading Borough Council said extra resources were being put in place in its traffic hub in a bid to get the traffic moving.

He said: “The Council can do things like control traffic signals to try and improve flows at key junctions where needed, and put up-to-the-minute advice for motorists on variable message boards we have across town.”

Transport leader Cllr Tony Page said: “The timing we have chosen is designed to minimise the impact, particularly as one week of that will be in half term.

“If we do not do the works then there would be permanent lane closures on Reading Bridge. It is a short term period of two weeks of inconvenience and we would ask people to bear with us during that time.”