ROAD resurfacing caused chaos according to a woman who claims she was driven from her home when pneumatic drills were used in the early hours of the morning. The angry resident, of Chells Way, Stevenage, said: It s been a nightmare. It s been absolutely

ROAD resurfacing caused chaos according to a woman who claims she was driven from her home when pneumatic drills were used in the early hours of the morning.

The angry resident, of Chells Way, Stevenage, said: "It's been a nightmare. It's been absolutely terrible here and I have been absolutely seething.

"I thought they would use the pneumatic drill first thing in the evening and leave the painting till midnight, not the other way around.

"I didn't realise how much intrusion it was going to cause or how noisy it was going to be.

"The majority of the nights they worked till midnight and on one occasion it was the early hours of the morning.

"I had to stay with a relative one night. It drove me out of my home."

The annoyed resident, who does not wish to be named, has two children aged 11 and 14.

She said: "My youngest has been very tired and has had to sleep on a camp bed in his brother's room because his bedroom is at the front of the house.

"He's just started a new school so he's got enough stress as it is."

The frustrated mother claims she originally received a letter from Hertfordshire Highways stating the work on Chells Way, from Six Hills Way to Mobbsbury Way, would be carried out from September 12 to September 15 and would finish no later than 10pm each night.

She claims the work began on September 11 and was not completed until Monday, continuing until at least midnight each evening.

She said: "The last week we have had to endure noise, disruption and chaos with the sound of pneumatic drills, rollers and various other sorts of equipment.

"No consideration for the residents was observed.

"Is there going to be compensation for the misery that the agency has caused or just a huge rise in our council tax bills to pay for the resurfacing?"

A spokesman for Hertfordshire Highways said: "Unfortunately the work had to be done.

"We have a statutory duty to maintain the roads and they do come to the end of their lives and have to be resurfaced.

"It's a busy road and we tried to cause the least amount of disruption by carrying out the work at night.

"Prior to the start of this work we had an agreement with (the borough council's) environmental health department that any planing work, which is particularly noisy, would be finished by 10.30pm but we always finished by 10pm.

"We agreed that any other resurfacing work would be finished by midnight.

"We actually had environmental health do noise level readings and they were satisfied that we had stuck to the agreement.