ANGRY residents say their lives are being made a misery by the construction of a new £12million road on Canvey.

The 1.6-mile Roscommon Way extension linking Northwick Corner with Haven Road has been designed to divert lorries heading for Charfleets, Oikos and Calor away from Canvey Road.

But construction has begun at the Haven Road end, meaning even more HGVs are rumbling past Barry and Lorraine Scott’s home in Canvey Road. The couple want to know why work could not have been started at the other end, where there are no homes.

Barry Scott, 66, of Canvey Road, said: “It’s getting ridiculous.

“I sit on the settee and I can feel the floor jumping up and bouncing as they go by.

“It has always been bad, but since they started work on Roscommon Way it has got worse.

“There are a number of places where they could have started the road which would have kept traffic from coming too far along Canvey Road.”

His wife Lorraine, 61, added: “Sometimes we get two or three an hour. It feels like you’re getting heart palpitations when they go past.

“We sat hear the day after the work started and we thought there had been an earthquake.

“It would have been better if they could have started the other end, away from houses.”

Work on the road finally started on May 6, after weeks of hold ups.

If the road is not completed by April 2011 the council will lose the Government cash for the scheme.

Essex County Council spokesman Michael Page insisted it had always been the council’s intention to start at the Haven Road end.

He said: “Due to the environmental sensitivity of the area and the need to move reptiles it was always the intention to begin works at the Haven Road end. The works are due to last for a year although traffic movements will vary throughout this period.

“To date we have in the order of 50 lorry deliveries to site.”

Dave Blackwell, leader of the Canvey Island Independent Party, sympathised with the Scotts and their neighbours.

He said: “It doesn’t make sense to build the road this way round.

“The only light at the end of the tunnel is in the end when the road is built hopefully there will be fewer lorries going along Canvey Road.”