FED-UP residents and motorists are celebrating after Essex County Council announced it will repair 48 roads in and around Brentwood.

The scheme is part of a 700-road plan to fix potholes across the county.

It’s a £17.5million programme, expected to be completed by March.

Workers will mainly target potholes and other defects including wonky kerbs and damaged footways.

Roads in the borough that will be fixed include Essex Way, Newmans Drive and Warley Mount in Brentwood; the Paddocks and Whadden Chase in Ingatestone and Fryerning, plus The Gardens and All Saints Close in Doddinghurst.

Councillors throughout Essex often say their number one complaint from residents is the state of the roads, and Brentwood is no different.

Lib Dem councillor David Kendall, who chairs the borough’s highways panel, was happy that work is to finally begin, but hopes it won’t just be a quick fix.

He said: “I’m delighted that at last, at long last, something is being done to sort out this problem.

“Many of these roads have been waiting for a couple of years to be repaired, many of which are residential, so it’s long overdue.

“Residents’ concerns will now be how quickly will they be repaired in the future.

“This has taken a long time so the issue now is how quick repairs will happen going forward.”

County Hall has been given £4.4million from the Government towards the repairs.

It is one of the biggest outlays from its £168million “pothole fighting fund”.

The county council had already earmarked cash to fix potholes and last month set aside a further £5.6million.

Road safety campaigner Bal Singh Chhokar said he was happy to see roads starting to get fixed, especially those outside and near schools.

He said: “Drivers move around these potholes to avoid damage to their cars and it is often without looking in the oppostite direction.

“They dart around the hole and it can cause accidents.

“I hope to see the work start very soon.

“If a little hole appears, it needs to be filled straight away.”

Figures released show there are almost 17,000 road defects across Essex.

In Brentwood alone there are 684.

Councillor Rodney Bass, in charge of highways and transportation at County Hall, said: “These roads are in urgent need of repair and we are making the manpower available to get the job done – recently doubling the number of maintenance crews to 36 to bring the county’s roads up to standard.”

James Horsby, 25, from Newmans Drive, Brentwood, said: “Yes please, we could certainly do with someone looking at our road!

“This is good news indeed, the sooner they get to us the better. My neighbours and I have had quite enough.”

There will be an additional 20 four-man crews working on the road network, meaning 36 crews in total until 31 March 2015.

Here are the 48 streets in line for repairs...

Alfred Road; All Saints Close; Alpha Road; Broad Meadow; Chafford Gardens; Coleridge Walk; Corcorans; Crescent Drive; Crossways; Essex Way; Firsgrove Crescent; First Avenue; 
The Gardens; Greenshaw; Highview Crescent; Hogarth Avenue; Knights Way; Langford Green; Long Meadow; Middleton Road; Mount Crescent; Newmans Drive; Oliver Road; The Paddocks; Plovers Mead; Priests Field; Prospect Way; Queenswood Avenue; Robin Hood Road; Rose Valley; Saxon Close; Shelley Road; South Drive; Spring Pond Meadow; St Thomas Road; Station Road; Tennyson Road; Thornridge; The Tyburns; Vine Way; Wakelin Chase; Warley Mount; West Park Hill; Westwood Avenue; Whadden Chase; Woodman Road; 
Wyatts Green Lane; Chelmsford Road Service Road East.