RESIDENTS say they will be forced to “suffer air, noise and light pollution and a loss of privacy” if a new link road near Colchester is given the green light.

The new A133/A120 link road, along with a Rapid Transport System to the east of Colchester, is being funded with £99million of Government money secured by Essex County Council to deliver infrastructure to help support a new garden town of 9,000 homes.

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

The council’s development and regulation committee is due to meet today to potentially approve the proposals for the new link road, as well as new access routes to Ardleigh South Services and Colchester waste transfer station as well as three new roundabouts.

Elmstead Parish Council has laid out a number of objections to the link road, arguing it has and will continue to have a “detrimental impact on their health and wellbeing”.

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The parish council said in representations to the county council: “They will have to wait 15 years in order to gain any protection from planting mitigation as mature hedging and tree are being replaced with saplings.

“It is unacceptable any residents should suffer financially, mentally and physically in this way.”

Homeowners living near the proposed site of the link road have previously said the road will ruin their lives.

The parish council has also said the village does not have the capacity to cope with any more traffic or the infrastructure to cope with any more homes.