SPEED bumps along a lane in Hawkwell will be torn up due to the complaints of one man.

Residents in Magnolia Road clubbed together to put them in to slow down traffic after two dogs were killed.

Stuart Mennell, the former clerk of Hawkwell Parish Council, complained to the council and took Tracey Chapman, former highways boss for Essex County Council, to a local Government ombudsman.

Now the council has been ordered to rip them up.

Mrs Chapman said she had fought to keep them all along and felt “mortified”.

She said: “The residents paid for the bumps themselves. Nobody was worried about it, it cured the problem.

“It is really unfair that one person seems to override what everyone else wants.”

Mrs Chapman said other ways to slow traffic down in the unmade road had been looked at but were not suitable.

She added: “We looked at putting speed bumps in but it was too expensive and we would have to make the whole road up which changes the character of the lane. It is not wide enough to put other restrictions in and they would have to put lighting up.”

Shelley Edwards, 39, has lived in the road for 18 years and said one of the bumps had been there since 1988.

She said: “It is a long stretch of road and the traffic became terrible. It was an accident waiting to happen.

“He doesn’t even live down the road. Its just one person and they are saying because he has been to the ombudsman they have got to take them out.

“It is absolutely ridiculous. Essex County Council have got better things to spend their money on.”

Another neighbour, Anne Hazle, added: “He never asked anybody elses opinion but decided he doesn’t like them and they have got to go.

“We don’t think it is fair - it should be a decision for the whole area.”

Carran Sims, 44, from Hockley, has been riding horses along the lane for more than 30 years.

She added: “If they are removed they will just use it as a racetrack. There are a lot of dog walkers and horseriders that use it.”

Tricia Mennell, wife of Stuart, said customers to their boarding kennels in Durham Road had complained about the speed bumps.

She said: “The speed bumps are illegal, they are too high, it does your suspension in. It doesn’t matter how slow you go over the bumps.

“The customers that come to us have been complaining about it, they have got sports cars.

“We have got nothing against speed bumps but we really would like them put in properly."