A festering 'eyesore' that has blighted the lives of the villagers of Mountnessing for nearly a decade is to be swept away at last - to make a way for a new hotel.

For eight years, people living on Lower Road have had to put up with an ugly scrapyard on their doorsteps and the anxiety caused by the vandals and drug takers who, they claim, have taken over six nearby bungalows left derelict while their then-owners Sainsbury's sought permission for a giant store on the site.

But now, at last, the end is in sight, because developers The Carroll Group are to ask Brentwood Council for permission to build a 100 room, four storey hotel and conference centre on the five hectare site.

A car showroom, a petrol station, a convenience store and possibly a riverside picnic area are also planned. If the scheme is given the go-ahead, a new access road would also be built through the site linking Roman Road and Lower Road, which would, in turn, become a cul-de-sac to reduce the number of cars using the area as a rat run.

Lower Road resident Mike Farley, who last year joined his neighbours in campaigning for something to be done about the site, said: "I would certainly welcome it and I would like to think the majority of people in the village will as well. It's got to be an improvement on what's there at the moment. The sooner something happens to that eyesore the better.

"Lower Road used to be a very quiet place when we first came here more than 30 years ago but now it's a short cut to the A12 and the M25 and it's become like a race track, morning and night. This will take the traffic away from the village and return our road to the quiet place it once was.

"But we are still extremely annoyed down here that we had to face eight years of vandalism and drug-takers before our complaints finally got things done."

The developer believes that the construction programme would create a large number of jobs within the building trade if given the go-ahead, with a significant number of full and part-time jobs being created in the long term running of the site.

A Carroll Group spokesman said: "During the initial stages of preparing the scheme as proposed we have endeavoured to listen and take into account the feelings of local residents within Mountnessing.

"Our intention is to provide a development of good quality facilities, which, from our research, meet the requirements of the Brentwood area."

POSTER PROTESTERS: Clockwise at the height of their campaign, Pat and Michael Farley, David Gottesman and June Rowley.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.