A MAN claims a builder’s badly-botched job has left him with a driveway that looks like a First World War battlefield.

Steven Heath paid a man, claiming to work for an Essex driveway and patio company, £2,300 to lay a resin bonded aggregate drive at his home in Kings Road, Benfleet.

The work was completed just before Christmas, but within weeks, the brickwork began to break and cracks appeared in the surface.

Mr Heath, 58, chased the company for a refund, but says he has not heard anything in two months.

He said: “My driveway looks like a re-enactment of the Battle of Ypres. It’s ridiculous.

“I rang them and got fobbed off. Eventually, they said they would give me a refund, but that was in February and I’ve heard nothing from them since.

“It’s a joke and people need to be made aware of this.”

Mr Heath is even more angry because he borrowed the money for the work from his mother-inlaw.

He said he’d initially been approached by a man named “Steve”, who said he worked for a company called Harrington Driveways and Patios.

Mr Heath added: “They approached us. They were doing a job on the corner house and it was alright.

“They knocked on the door and my partner spoke to them.

“We agreed they would do a resin driveway for £2,300.

“When I paid ‘Steve’, I asked for a receipt, but was told he ‘didn’t do paperwork’.

“They did the job and they looked reasonably efficient.

“On the day theywere going to be completing it, we were asking about the resin and the way it was finished and they just dumped a load of shingle on it.”

“‘Steve’ was really hassling me for the money. There was a lot of pressure. We kept asking about the resin and they said it would set. I believed him. He said it would be alright, but it just deteriorated.”

Harrington Driveways and Patios’ website lists a company office in Lodge Lane, Grays, and depots in Great Warley, near Brentwood, in the City of London and in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.

The Echo contacted the 0800 number on the website and spoke to someone who promised to pass on a message to the owner, as the company’s email address no longer worked.

When we managed to track down “Steve” on his mobile phone, he refused to give his surname and said he knew nothing about Mr Heath’s faulty driveway.

He denied outright carrying out the work, and working for Harrington, though he refused to say where he did work.

He added: “I need to see some paperwork. I’m not connected with Harrington.

“A customer rang me about this and I asked if they had the paperwork and they had paid in cash. He (Steven Heath) is being misled.”