Action is being demanded to start work on a link road between Witham and Hatfield Peverel - two years after permission was first granted.

Braintree MP Alan Hurst and a host of angry councillors want to get a link road between Witham and Hatfield Peverel off the ground - in a bid to stop people using the notorious slip road leading to the A12, the only main road to link the towns.

The link road has Government approval and funding for it is in place but it has been held up for two years because of a series of planning complications.

Now Mr Hurst has pledged asking road minister Keith Hill to take up the issue if work does not start soon.

District councillors John Jarvis and Keith Bigden, with the support of shadow transport secretary Bernard Jenkin, will petition the Highways Agency to complete the scheme.

The stretch of the A12 claimed five lives in nine months during 1996 and 1997, including the death of a mother and her six-year-old child.

Maxine Mesher and her son, Harry Wilson, had accidentally travelled the wrong way down a slip road and ended up on the wrong side of the dual carriageway when her car was involved in a high-speed collision.

New signs were put up a year ago to prevent drivers entering the southbound carriageway the wrong way.

Mr Hurst said: "The Highways Agency has put forward all sorts of reasons for the delay, but it has been two years now. This is deplorable. Someone else could be killed on that road."

Mr Jarvis said: "The problem is not just drivers go the wrong way down a slip road, that is the worst manifestation of the problem.

"Every week you hear an accident on A12 at Hatfield Peverel is causing congestion. Every week somebody's life is put at risk."

Phil Cheesmur, Highway's Agency Project Manager, said: "People don't seem to understand we can't just rush in and build this scheme, but we do realise the urgency.

"At the moment, we are waiting for the Essex Structure Plan to be made public so we can see which routes will be developed."

The petition will be available to sign in stores in Hatfield Peverel.

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