FAMILIES are being woken in the night by the tremors of buses and lorries shaking the ground and causing cracks in their walls.

Neighbours in Roding Road, Loughton, fear their homes will be badly damaged by heavy vehicles disturbing the uneven road surface, which they say gets worse with every bought of heavy rain.

Bob Simmons, 69, a retired construction worker, believes ground beneath the road surface is being washed away.

“It’s a combination of water from the allotments and all the houses discharging water under the road," he said.

“Our house and the houses down the road have cracks appearing in the porches.”

Kathleen Payne, 63, who also lives in Roding Road, said: “The whole house shakes right the way through. It even affects the TV in the back room, which vibrates.

“The vibration is really bad at night when the bus comes through. One night it vibrated the house so much, I nearly had a heart attack.

“The surface should be replaced. Covering the cracks is not really solving the problem.”

She said the traffic islands in the middle of the road were adding to the problem by forcing traffic closer to the pavement.

Her neighbour, Philip Baker, 68, said: “Cracks have opened in the wall and we’ve had them plastered up twice.

“The kerbstone on the road has dropped, so it’s obviously collapsing from underneath.”

He said he had seen workers filling in potholes, but they had told him they would not be able to repair any damage below the surface of the road.

“It seems the only way we will get something done is if one of the houses collapses,” he added.

Homeowners in Loughton Way, Buckhurst Hill, handed a 200-signature petition to Epping MP Eleanor Laing in an attempt to get something done about a similar problem causing their houses to shake.

But the problem has still not been solved and Essex County Councillor Valerie Metcalfe said she was waiting for an answer on what should be done.

“Several weeks ago, I arranged for a senior highways engineer to visit both (Loughton Way and Roding Road) in order to come up with a plan as to how to deal with the vibrations,” she said.

“Although some suggestions were made on site, I am still waiting for the engineer’s report to get a definitive version as to what work he suggests should be undertaken.

“At least in Roding Road, the drains on the corner of Roding Gardens have now been cleared so that should assist in the removal of some of the heavy rain.

“I will make sure that I keep residents up-to-date on work that is proposed.”

Click here to follow the Epping Forest Guardian on Twitter

Click here to follow the Epping Forest Guardian on Facebook