FURIOUS residents who say they were not given enough notice about upcoming road resurfacing works have hit out at the results – after workers tarmacked around several parked cars.

Residents of Cromwell Road, Westham, say they were not given enough notice by Dorset County Council, or the firm it employed, about road resurfacing work that took place. 

Many say they found out about the work a day before it took place and while many did move their cars so that work could be carried out, some, including motorists from neighbouring streets using Cromwell Road to park, did not.

Nick Newman, 38, said the road had needed fixing for a while but the latest work appeared to be a "quick fix" to the problem. 

"It needed doing properly," said Mr Newman. This is not good. I received a leaflet on Friday telling me work would take place within three days. They turned up on Saturday morning and some residents had not moved their cars. They didn't give enough warning. 

"The road has been poor for a long time now. I did enquire a few years ago about getting it done because of the potholes but I was told it wasn't an issue. Then this came about very quickly, which is strange. It's shoddy. I just hope they will come back otherwise the whole thing is pointless. It's half a job. I pay road tax and council tax and this is just a rushed job; a quick fix."

The resurfacing work, which started last week, is taking place on roads throughout Westham.

Andrew Mooren, 66, agreed that more notice should have been given. “If you think about the number of houses and how many people have more than one car, you’re looking at 200 cars that need to be moved and parking around here is always bad enough,” said Mr Mooren. "They should’ve given more notice.

“They should have towed the cars that were left as the work is pretty bad. The road did need doing but I don’t think this is much of an improvement."

Richard Caulkett, 53, was also left unimpressed by the work. 

“They have rushed the job,” he said. “It doesn’t look finished. They flew through like a whirlwind. I’m just worried that they might not come back and fix it.”

John Borrows also believes there was a lack of notice prior to the work. 

Mr Borrows said: “We had two days’ notice to move our cars. I know that a van owner was on holiday and one of the cars belonged to a woman in a different street. The work is not very good but you can’t blame the workers, they did what they could with what they could.” 

A spokesman for DCC said: “We have been using a sub-contractor to carry out micro-asphalt surfacing on a number of roads in the Westham area. This is a specialist treatment that seals the road surface and adds skid resistance. We had already carried out extensive patching of the roads, which were starting to pothole. 

“We try to notify households a minimum of two days in advance by leaflet and signs on the street. Because the work is weather dependent and liable to change it would not help to inform them too early. We will look into when the contractor delivered the leaflets about this work to see whether residents were given sufficient notice.

“If cars are parked, the contractor will carry out the work and return as soon as they can to complete it, subject to being able to gain access. 

“We would like to thank residents, who have been very cooperative during this work.”