ROADS are blocked and alleyways reek of urine after a quiet estate was turned into an impromptu lorry park.

Trucks have been delivering goods to businesses in Brooker Road, Waltham Abbey, for years, but in recent months increasing numbers of truck drivers have been parking their vehicles in the estate overnight.

With the nearest lorry park, Junction 26, in Skillett Hill Farm, charging drivers £20 a night, people believe that lorry drivers are drawn to the road for its length and lack of parking restrictions.

But with no public facilities available nearby, business owners and residents claim truckers are using the street as a toilet and their vehicles are blocking the road, endangering pedestrians and preventing emergency service vehicles accessing the road and the recently developed Town Mead Leisure Centre, which is situated nearby.

Diana Kellard is 68 and runs the Renaissance Mouldings framing company in Brooker Road.

She said: “The situation is absolutely horrendous.

“You get as many trucks parking up here as can get into the road, sometimes there are up to 20. Some nights you can hardly put a pin between them.

“The thing is this is not a designated truck stop. I think we need extra parking restrictions imposed,” she said.

Elaine Fletcher is a trustee of the Youth 2000 youth club in the estate, and is concerned for the safety of the club’s 60 members.

She said: “Pedestrians have to step off into the road all of the time because these vehicles park right up on the pavement.

“It is very dangerous on some of the bends because people can’t see what is coming round the corner at them when they step out.

“I do not know how a fire engine would manage to fit down here at when they are all parked up.”

The North Essex Parking Partnership has been asked to comment.

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