Hundreds of villagers face another lengthy period of sleepless night as traffic diversions trundle past they homes.

Work by National Highways on the A12 to Copdock, have meant more diversions coming through the bottom part of the Shotley peninsula hitting rural villages along the route.

Alastair McCraw, Brantham parish council chairman and Babergh district ward member, has been calling for more to be done to mitigate the disruption.

This includes doing more to reduce speed, noise, and improve signage.

Cllr McCraw said: "It is every rural village from Colchester along the A137 including going through Brantham, Tattingstone and Wherstead.

"This is nothing new, we have months of it last year we have had meetings with lots of people where lots of good words were spoken but little in the way of action.

"This is during the hours of sleep and causing huge disruptions and it it breaking up the road.

"People are sleeping feet away from heavy traffic.

"Everyone knows the A12 needs work, it always seems a need to do that, but we in the rural villages seemed to get ignored."

A letter received by Brantham parish council by National Highways includes mitigation but Cllr McCraw is sceptical.

He said: "We have a response and National Highways are going to reduce disruption temporary signage

"We will have average speed cameras, variable sp

"But exercise tells us drivers will pay as much attention as they always did when they are in a rush to drop or pick up their load."

Traffic delays along the A137 through Wherstead to the A14 junctions, usually take around 10 minutes on a normal day, extra disruption is expected to add to that.

National Highways insisted it will introduce measures to manage speeding vehicles and reduce disruption in local areas along the A12 and designated diversion routes.

These measures will include extra signage in the villages, including speed activated VMS. (Variable Messaging Signs) .

The letter added: "We will also look to install signs at strategic points to prevent rat running away from the diversion route.

"We have considered a temporary speed limit in the existing 60mph section of the A137, however, to implement this it will require us to put in place over 100 speed restriction signs at various locations along the local and strategic road network. To install and maintain this amount of extra signs on a live carriageway would expose our workforce to increased risks.

"We have significantly increased the use of the safety camera van on the diversion route. This will now be out every night and any examples of dangerous driving or excessive speeding will be reported to Essex and Suffolk Police."

During our improvement works along the A12, we will work closely with our Suffolk and Essex highway counterparts to identify and report local road defects, allowing the relevant authority to repair and maintain the road in a safe and serviceable."

Cllr McCraw added: "It feels like a sticking plaster really. We'll see shortly if they have the will to make these proposals work."

More information from National Highways website here...

Sleepless nightmare for villagers