Two separate homes in north Essex have been damaged after runaway cars crashed into them.

In Colchester, a High Woods house faces partial demolition after an automatic car crashed into it.

The elderly home owners, who were just feet away from the impact, today (Tuesday) had to move out of their the house in High Woods, Colchester, to await a building inspection.

In Clacton, elderly neighbours had a lucky escape when a car ploughed through two gardens, wrecking another vehicle and knocking over concrete fence posts.

In the Colchester incident Victor and Margery Haye, both in their 80s, fear the entire front of their Sioux Close home will have to be pulled down and rebuilt.

The crash, yesterday (Monday) morning, happened when a neighbour was working on his Ford Granada with his wife in the passenger seat.

The automatic car suddenly lurched forward and knocked down a garden wall. It then reversed, before shooting forwards, slamming into the house under the kitchen window.

About an hour-and-a-half after the crash, cracks started to appear at the front of the house, which had just been repainted, getting worse as the day went on.

The car's owner, Richard Tricker, and his wife Amanda, were not seriously injured. But they said they were very shaken up and upset by their neighbours' plight

In Clacton, the drama started when a Honda Accord was pulling out of Anchor Road into Alton Park Road, Clacton, and collided with the back of a passing Vauxhall Astra.

The collision sent the Honda out of control and into the front garden of a house, knocking down a brand new fence.

Not stopping there, it then went through a concrete post, through a second house's garden gates and into a car which was parked on the drive.

Having badly knocked the back end of the car, shunting it into the garden, the Honda was driven over a wire fence, splitting another concrete post in three before finally getting back onto the road.

The driver then drove off and the car was later found abandoned on the junction of St Osyth Road and Rush Green Road.

Dorothy Higgins, 79, said she and her husband had had a lucky escape. They had been visiting their son's house and were 15 minutes late returning home when the accident happened.

She said had they been on time, her husband would have been in the garden watering the plants at the very spot where the car hit.

Police are trying to trace the driver of the Honda. They would also like to trace the driver of a green Golf GTI, seen in the vicinity at the time, who might be able to help them with their inquires.

Any witnesses should contact PC Kevin Carter at Thorpe Traffic Police on 01255 861455.

(Right) Victor and Margery Haye outside their damaged home

(Left) Dorothy Higgins

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