A RESIDENT has hit out at a “ludicrous” bus gate in Colchester which isn’t on a registered service bus route.

Louisa White, who is 90 years old and has lived in Colchester since 1956, criticised Essex County Council for the bus gate leading to the Rosewood housing estate in Olympic Boulevard, Mile End.

The housing estate was completed in 2014, at which point no bus gate was in place.

By the following year, however, bus gate enforcement signs, as well as automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, had been installed on the entrance to Olympic Boulevard from the Mill Road roundabout.

After reading a Gazette story about the amount of money made annually by Essex County Council from bus gate penalty charges, however, Mrs White took aim at the authority for keeping the Olympic Boulevard bus gate in place when it isn’t even being used by service buses.

She said: “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we have bus gates without a bus service – the bus gate is a total misinformation on the highway, and this has been going on here for years.

“There can’t be a bus gate without a bus service – that’s wrong, isn’t it?

“Equally, at the time it was constructed we were told we would get buses in the area, but they aren’t there.

“It’s complete incompetence on the part of Essex Highways, when we have the bus gates but not the bus service – how Highways gets away with these blunders I will never know.”

It is not the first time Essex Highways has come in for criticism in recent months, with a pensioner from Sussex revealing in November that she had won an appeal against a PCN after she successfully argued the signage around the North Hill bus gate was unclear.

Mrs White did add, however, she would not mind the bus gate remaining in place if an improved bus service was offered.

“We would like a bus service there to release the pinch points on the traffic during peak hours.”

Responding to the criticism, an Essex County Council spokesman said: “The bus gate at this location is currently under review.”