DESPAIRING residents say their lives have been ruined after Essex County Council refused to buy their property located just yards from a planned new dual carriageway.

At its closest point, the new road linking the A133 and A120, would be just 63m away from Mount Pleasant Cottages in Elmstead Market.

The new road is being built to enable a 9,000-home new town to go ahead and could potentially carry up to 20,000 vehicles a day.

Documents submitted as part of the planning application have admitted the properties, in Tye Road, “are predicted to experience significant adverse noise effects”.

They currently look out on to hundreds of acres of arable fields.

The owners have been told tree planting and quiet concrete will mitigate the impact of the road.

Read more >> Residents say A133/A120 link road plans have 'ruined their lives'

However, Adele High, who lives with husband, Simon, and their two teenage sons at Mount Pleasant Cottages, said the impact the project is having financially and mentally has “ruined” their lives.

The couple have submitted an informal blight request to force Essex County Council to purchase the property or compensate them.

This discretionary blight notice has been refused, but they are still able to request one formally.

However, the council said “it is very likely” it would maintain an objection because “no part of the property is comprised in blighted land”.

Adele, 49, said: “We are potentially going to be having 20,000 vehicles running past our house each day and they think their mitigation measures are trees and a quiet road surface.

“It has ruined our lives.”

The planned route will leave the A133 via a roundabout east of the University of Essex, cutting across 2.4 km of open farmland before joining the A120 at a junction east of Bromley Road.

Adele and Simon say it means the home should be worth significantly less than the £425,000 it was estimated at in 2017.

Adele said: “We want out.”

Linda Blanchette, 59, who has lived at Mount Pleasant Cottages with husband Ian for 31 years, said: “We don’t want to move. We find it so unfair they are not willing to offer us anything. We are just being forced to put up with it.”

A report signed by councillor Lesley Wagland, County Hall’s economic renewal, infrastructure and planning boss, said: "Essex County Council has included details in its planning application which will seek to mitigate the impact of the road corridor through screening of the route and low noise road surfacing to minimise visual and noise intrusion on the surrounding area.

“The impact on the property will, therefore, be limited.

“No part of the property is closer than 63m to the proposed boundary of the new highway, with the carriageway being further away.”