HOMEOWNERS in a road plagued by speeding and dangerous parking have hit out at plans to expand a controversial lorry park and add a 43-room hotel.

Owners of Junction 26 Truck Stop on Skillet Hill Farm, Waltham Abbey, caused uproar two years ago when they successfully gained a licence to sell alcohol - despite objections from residents, the council and Essex Police.

Now developers have applied for permission to demolish existing buildings on the Honey Lane site and build a two-storey hotel, petrol station, new truck stop, restaurant, 11 new lorry spaces and parking for 82 cars.

After consulting the four closest neighbours, district council planning officers have recommended the application be approved, pointing out that 'there are no immediate neighbours to the development site and therefore no real impact.'

But residents of Honey Lane - who have struggled for years with parking problems, speeding and lorries using the road as a shortcut - disagree.

Denis Esau, 80, served as a town councillor for 17 years and has lived in Honey Lane for 25.

He said: "It's too much - we get a lot of traffic problems here.

"Those foreign lorries, they trundle down here. One day I can see a blood bath here.

"Last week when we had that light snow, Honey Lane was gridlocked for about an hour.

"Now if we've got a hotel with the extra lorries coming out, to me it's a disaster - or it could be."

Wendy Wooster, 71, said: "All that's going to do is bring more traffic down here.

"That lorry park, it's been building up over the years and the council have allowed it to happen.

"I'm not against lorries - my husband's got two sons in the haulage business.

"But why do we want these bloody lorries down here?"

Waltham Abbey Town Council has objected to the plans, raising concerns about overdevelopment of the Green Belt and the potential increase in traffic.

Richard Brooks, a town councillor who lives in Honey Lane, has said: "Although it's on the motorway junction, I think the size of the development is too much for Honey Lane.

"It's going to increase the traffic load. The speed limit's just been amended here too.

"That's what they call sod's law."