DESPAIRING motorists claim a road has been left full of dangerous craters after work by Essex Highways contractors.

Residents in Magnolia Road, Rochford, say engineering work has made the road surface far worse than it was before they asked the council to come and fix up their road.

Shelley Edwards said: “I have been here 21 years and in all these years the council never touched it.

“I got back from holiday and just thought, ‘oh my God! What have they done?’ We didn’t get a letter in advance about it.

“My dad is a builder and remarked on what terrible a job they had done. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“What they’ve done cost about £19,000, yet potholes isn’t even the right word for what they have left behind. There are huge craters in the road.

“I can’t get downit without the bottom of my car hitting the road. There are lots of craters.”

Mrs Edwards believes the problem was been caused by contractors scraping off the old road surface and then simply laying gravel on it.

Fellow Magnolia Road resident Derek Wood, 59, said he thought the road was now more dangerous than it was originally, making it a challenge for emergency services to get through to residents.

He added: “The potholes were getting dangerous, so we got on to the council.

“It didn’t seem too bothered , but then out of the blue, it sent some people to do a repair. They took up 90 per cent of the good part of the road. It looked all nice when it was done. Then the next day, it was ruined and all washed away – about £20,000 of work.

“It’s dangerous. If an ambulance came down here to someone with a back injury they wouldn’t be able get them out.

An Essex Highways spokesman said it was dealing with the problem.

She added: “We have explored the concerns of Magnolia Road residents and a funding request for extra work has been submitted through the Rochford Local Highways Panel.”

ROCHFORD District Council’s chairman Heather Glynn says she is “ashamed to be a councillor” after hearing about the situation.

Mrs Glynn lives near Magnolia Road and said she was appalled at the work Essex Highways had done. She feels residents are being completely ignored and had demanded action.

She said: “The way all the residents have been treated is bad. It’s a disgrace.

“It’s impossible to go down the road without constantly scraping the bottom of your car.

It’s a nightmare.

“We are being completely and utterly ignored. I am ashamed to say I’m a councillor when I see all this mess.”