AT LEAST 300 cars and lorries per day would be diverted away from residents homes if Dunmow s Woodland Park bypass is completed. That is what Dunmow Town Council s finance and policy committee were told at a meeting last week. A representative of Essex C

AT LEAST 300 cars and lorries per day would be diverted away from residents' homes if Dunmow's Woodland Park bypass is completed.

That is what Dunmow Town Council's finance and policy committee were told at a meeting last week.

A representative of Essex County Council (ECC) told the committee that, following a formal survey, traffic flow in Dunmow's town centre would also be decreased if the remaining 400m of the bypass was finished.

ECC is looking into the possibility of adopting the road from Wickford Developments which is currently building the Woodlands Park estate.

But the representative said that the estimated cost of completing the project would be a "very expensive figure", adding: "If the council is to finish the bypass it should not be at a cost to the taxpayer."

A contract agreement inserted by planners before the first brick was laid said that the developers would need to finish the road once the 651st house was occupied. With the present rate of house building that is still years away.

Residents on Rosemary Lane have to bare the brunt of the traffic that goes between Thaxted, Saffron Walden, Stansted and the M11 motorway.

Dunmow town councillor, Phil Milne, is one of many residents living on that road urging ECC to finish the bypass.

He said: "Rosemary Lane is very narrow and becomes very busy during peak hours when parents are on the school run. When big lorries go by it vibrates my whole house.

"It is ridiculous that the bypass is still lying there unfinished when there is only a few hundred metres left."

A feasibility study is being completed but it is thought that the costs could be high. The bypass would connect Stortford Road to the B184 near to Little Easton.