A sleepless resident has hit out at a council for allowing workmen to repair a road at 4am on a Monday morning.

Barbara Bevan of The Dell in Stevenage was jolted out of bed when a highways repair team began resurfacing work on Fairlands Way at midnight and did not stop until four hours later on October 18 until

The road had been closed nightly from 8pm to 5am by Herts Highways from October 11 until last Friday.

Mrs Bevan said: “I went to bed looking forward to a good nights sleep, and at midnight I was jolted from my slumbers by an almighty racket coming from the road next to my house. Until four in the morning the repair team drilled, banged, and clattered up and down Fairlands way.

“What idiot thought this was a good idea? The rooms were shaking and ornaments moving off their shelves. Fairlands has many roads leading off it so surely the traffic could have been diverted during daytime? Many houses are on either side of Fairlands Way so this caused a great deal of distress to many people. Does the idiot who agreed to this consider that people work through the day and children need to be awake when they are at school? I understand that these works need to be done, but for goodness sake have a bit of common sense, any fool could see this was not a good idea.”

A Herts Highway spokesman said: “We appreciate that these works have been disruptive to some residents but closing this busy road during the day was not an option as this would have caused major traffic problems. We have tried to keep disruption to a minimum and do as much of the noisy work as possible before midnight.”