HUGE trucks roaring down a quiet country lane are shattering bridges, cracking sewage pipes and putting lives at risk, claim residents.

Gravel Lane, in Chigwell, hit the headlines last week after a resident’s fence was smashed for the fifth time in one year by a speeding car losing control on the sharp bend at the Miller’s Lane turning.

Now residents have united to call for restrictions that ban vehicles over 7.5 tonnes from using the road to be enforced, arguing that trucks using the route as a shortcut are causing serious damage and the results should a lorry lose control on the danger bend could be catastrophic.

Tony Tarling, who lives in Gravel Lane, said: “The houses on the bend are so close to the road and all they have got around them is a bit of lattice fence. It could be awful if a truck was to lose control.”

“The road was not built for that kind of vehicle.

He said that the problem had become worse in the last five years, with a regular stream of trucks now using the road as a shortcut to the M25 motorway and thought that SatNav systems could be directing lorries to use the route.

“You can feel the ground shaking when these trucks go past and we even have tiny cracks starting to appear in walls where there never any cracks before.

“About two years ago we had raw sewage leaking in to our garden from a bust pipe under the road, sooner or later it is bound to fracture again.”

Dick Stevens, 81, was born in Gravel lane and now owns the Brookside Garage there.

“We can complain about this to the district council until we are blue in the face and no one takes any notice of us," he said.

“It has definitely got worse, there are no two ways about it. I think it is only a matter of time before the bridge over the brook between us and Taylors Units collapses. You can see the trucks bouncing over it.”

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