A pothole-riddled road in Hadleigh is being patched up after taking a hammering in this year’s hard winter.

Church Road is one of many streets in Castle Point damaged by the coldest winter to hit Essex in many years.

Essex County Council highways staff are now working hard to fill in the holes, but officials are warning the job will take months to complete.

Work has now started in Church Road, one of the worst affected streets, with potholes nearly four feet across in places.

There are also plans to improve the pavements on either side of the road.

Alf Partridge, chairman of Castle Point Council’s highways panel, said: “The whole of the borough suffered from the frost and many of the old roads were hit particularly badly.

“It’s going to take us another three months to get where we want to be.”

Mr Partridge said many other seriously affected roads were earmarked for repair, but he declined to list them.

Residents in Church Road have welcomed the work to fix their street but complained repairs were long overdue.

Long-standing resident Dennis Smith said: “It’s great the work has been done, but it has been in an appalling condition for the 30 years I’ve lived here.”

The damage was caused after water got into cracks in roads, froze, then expanded, breaking open the surface.

The problem was exacerbated by the large amount of gritting salt used. Salt eats away at the the surface and can weaken it.

Victoria ward councillor, Colin Riley added: “Following the heavy frost, the top surface of the road broke up completely.

“We had big patches where it was pretty much rubble. In some places, we had to dig out the rubble just to make it passable.”