A dumped car, set on fire by vandals, has been upsetting residents for two months.

Residents in Prospero Close, off Hamlet Drive, on the Greenstead estate in Colchester, are livid about the eyesore and Colchester Council's failure to move it.

They say the wreck is lowering the tone of the neighbourhood, is a danger to nearby flats and will put housebuyers off the homes for sale there.

Despite contacting Colchester Council and the police on several occasions the car has not been moved.

Six weeks after it was abandoned it was set alight and rolled up against a ground-floor flat window. The panes of glass in the flat cracked in the heat and a resident had to tow the vehicle away from the block.

Richard Roebuck, 24, of Prospero Close, said: "It is disgusting. It is degrading for the people who live here. The authorities just don't want to know.

"It should be moved as a priority. I can't believe the council has let it stay there for eight weeks. They just don't seem to care but we have to live here."

He claimed he reported the eyesore to the council on several occasions, as had some of his neighbours.

Peter Jefferson, Colchester Council's housing and community services general manager, said he was only aware of one report about the car, made last Thursday.

He pledged the vehicle would be removed yesterday or today. He would also investigate whether the council had been notified about the car previously.

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