A WOMAN has endured a nightmare 18-month battle to have an abandoned car blocking a driveway removed by the council.

A black Ford Kia has been sitting abandoned for almost two years on an access road behind a Westcliff block of flats.

Fay Vincent’s elderly in-laws own the land on which 81 – 83 Wellington Avenue flats are situated.

Behind those flats is a garage, accessed by two small roads, one from Wellington Avenue and the other from the double gates of Vincent Court on London Road.

The offending vehicle’s MOT and tax expired in 2017, and has been dumped on a road which Fay’s in-laws need cleared so they can undertake vital repair works on the garages behind the Wellington Avenue flats.

“We need to get in there to clear it but we can’t get a van in from the Wellington side as it is narrow and the London Road entrance is blocked by this car,” Fay explained.

“We need to clear the garage roof, which has become overgrown, and undertake vital repairs.”

An exasperated Fay says her in-laws first noticed the car about two years ago, but only after six months did they realise it had been abandoned. Having approached the council, she says they were rebuffed, and told it was not the council’s responsibility as it is on private land.

But documentation on the council’s website contradicts that position, detailing the council’s process for removing abandoned vehicles, even when not on public land.

The policy states a council officer will visit the site for an inspection, and if the vehicle is determined to be “dangerously abandoned”, a seven-day notice will be affixed to the vehicle after which it will be removed from the site.

“I don’t know why they won’t help us or accept their responsibility,” she said. “We are struck in this loop, being led on a merry dance.

“It has been very stressful trying to get the council to help and I am just fed up with going around in circles with them over this.”

Southend Council has been contacted for comment.