RESIDENTS in a hamlet near Okehampton are calling on Devon County Council to fix a road which has sunk so badly they cannot drive over half of it.

Carer Kimberleigh Craigen, who lives at Rowden, described the stretch of road outside her house as an accident waiting to happen.

It is just horrific,’ she said. ‘I have grave concerns about someone driving down that road and having an accident. There are a lot of cyclists using that road, and if someone doesn’t know the road or is driving at night, there is potentially going to be a catastrophe.

‘More than half of it has sunk away, it has completely subsided. We have no choice but to drive on the half that is remaining but because everyone is doing that, the other side of the road is starting to give way as well.’

The damaged section of road is on a narrow lane which leads south from the B3215 between Okehampton and North Tawton.

’Quite a lot of people use that road to drive to South Tawton and Taw Green so it is quite a busy route,’ said Kimberleigh. ‘It has got to the point where it is very very dangerous to drive on, especially for anyone who does not know the road.’

She said she had contacted Devon County Council’s highways department to report the problems, but so far no one from the department had come out to look at it.

‘It will take up to three weeks for them to come out and even then they’ve said that they might not be able to fix it,’ she said.

‘It has been like this for several months now. It happened two years ago and the whole road subsided and they tried to do a patch job on it, but now it is worse than ever. There is a deep ridge between the middle of the road and where it has subsided so you are going to scratch your car if you were to drive down the road.’

A spokesman for Devon County Council told the Times: ‘We will investigate the site and assess the damage to the road.’