Clacton residents fed-up with pothole-riddled road

Residents of Lymington Avenue, in Clacton, have been fighting against potholes and bad road conditions for years, first taking the issue to Essex County Council in 2019.

An inspector was again sent to assess the situation in September last year, but the problem was not deemed bad enough to warrant intervention. 

Residents, however, maintain the issue is getting worse, not least due to the number of heavy double-decker buses which use the road.

Campaigner Mark Hennessey said: “Councillor Daniel Lang has been really helpful trying to get things done and moved on, and councillor Lee Scott when he was in charge of the council - he came for a cup of coffee and told me what he was trying to do. 

Breaking - Potholes in Lymington Avenue, which have been fixed, are reappaearing (Image: Mark Hennessey)

“But since councillor  Tom Cunningham took over the emails have just gone dead.” 

Over the years sporadic work has been carried out to fix some of the several potholes in the street, but the patched-up fix has not held for long. 

The homeowners have been left particularly enraged after seeing a neighbouring road being resurfaced instead of theirs, despite years of campaigning.

Mr Hennessey said: “The road has dilapidated much, much quicker.

“I've lived in this house for 26 years, and I haven’t seen these roads crumble as quickly as it has in the last five or six years.

“The reason is because the actual road itself is made of concrete, and because there's a very thin layer of tarmac on the top, it cannot be repaired properly. They don't apparently have a solution for it,” said Mr Hennessey. 

"All of the edging and sealing stripes started coming away within a couple of weeks leading the the very thin layer of tarmac to start breaking away."

Bosses at Essex Highways have now responded.

A spokesman said: “There are 19 carriage way-related defects outstanding in Gorse Lane, which will be addressed when the road is resurfaced. As of today, there are three outstanding defects reported in Lymington Avenue.

“We maintain over 5,000 miles of roads, one of the largest road networks in the country.

“In order to maximise our limited resources, we have to fix the most urgent issues first, however, all defects reported to us are assessed by an inspector.

“We rely on members of the public to report any defects or issues they find through our online Tell Us tool at essexhighways.org/tell-us.

“Information about our repair criteria and maintenance strategy can also be found at essexhighways.org/how-we-prioritise-highway-issues.”