A TEAM of residents and councillors fed-up with a neglected and pothole-ridden road have taken it upon themselves to carry out repairs.

Jaywick’s Brooklands estate has long been marred by a problematic strip running along the seafront wall from Lotus Way to Belsize Avenue.

The road has been plagued with large and deep craters which some people believed could result in somebody being seriously injured.

Due to the troubling stretch of tarmac being unadopted neither Tendring Council nor Essex County Council are technically responsible for its maintenance.

Gazette:

Brad Thompson, 36, vice chairman of the Jaywick Sands Community Forum, had grown concerned about the danger the road posed to residents, so decided to act.

Alongside fellow local John Reed and councillors Dan Casey and Mark Stephenson, Mr Thompson has now fixed the road using a £1,000 from Active Essex.

He said: “I have wanted to sort these potholes out for ages, but I have waited and waited for someone to do something because I did not want to get in trouble.

“People have fallen out of their wheelchairs while using the road and it has also badly damaged people’s cars – it has been a worry for a while.

“So, between us, we spent about eight hours filling in the potholes with proper approved materials and we even got double decker buses to run over the bigger ones.

“We had residents supporting us, cheering, and bring us cold drinks, and they told us how appreciative they were of what we were doing.”

Gazette:

Last month Essex County Council bosses stressed the resurfacing of the road was a longstanding and challenging issue due to it being unadopted.

Despite not being under their jurisdiction, County Hall councillors did previously step in to rejuvenate some of the roads in the area at a cost of £5million.

Mr Thompson, however, says the Jaywick community continues to feel let down by what they perceive to be a lack of help and support from those in power.

“Cyclists, walkers, joggers, people with disabilities and families with young children can now use the road again safely,” he added.

“The road is unadopted so the council says it does not have to do anything, but they still use it for their heavy vehicles and big buses.

“I will be quite happy to keep going out and fixing the roads if they give me the money to do it. The road will not last forever, I know, but something is better than nothing.

“The Jaywick community has yet again had to pull together because the council could not be bothered to help.”

Responding, a spokeswoman for Essex Highways said: “This is a longstanding and challenging issue.

"We are occasionally contacted by residents who would like us to take on the long-term maintenance for private roads across the county that have not been built to acceptable standards and would require significant investment of taxpayers’ money to bring them up to scratch.

"We have however worked closely with Tendring Council for a number of years to try to attract infrastructure investment to the area.

"We would normally discourage anyone from doing the work on the roads themselves because without proper traffic management and other specific safety measures, residents are putting themselves at risk. However, we do understand the real problems faced here.”