THE green light has been given to hire a team of enforcement officers to hit motorists with fines for driving over footpaths and grass verges.

Southend Council hope the funding boost will save the council millions on repairs which have shot up from £500,000 a year five years ago to £2million.

Deputy leader Councillor Ron Woodley said this is the equivalent of losing 3 per cent in council tax every year and blamed many of the problems on large construction vehicles, such as skip lorries and diggers.

Councillors have backed the move, saying they are ‘inundated’ with complaints from residents.

The recruitment drive, which was approved during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon, will also see a number of civil engineers being hired who will help maintain roads and shape some of the borough’s major new projects aimed at regenerating the town.

Mr Woodley said: “For far too long the highways team has been under resourced and over the years we have expended too much on that under resourced team.

“We all have our complaints and we all have our angst with the team.

This is our chance to get it right and going forward this will give us a fully functional, fully manned, fully staffed team.”

In total the highways department will expand from 61 positions to 79, however it is unclear at this stage how many of those roles will be for enforcement officers and how many will be engineers.

The overall cost of the extra staff is expected to be between £900,000 and 1.4m each year.

The move was backed by Councillor Trevor Harp who said he is constantly being contacted by residents who have concerns about roads but changes have not happened.

Councillor Carole Mulroney also said she is “inundated” with issues linked to highways and it is “vitally important” that if the council wants to provide a better service, it needs the “right staffing to go along with it”.