FURIOUS road campaigners say Tendring Council’s chairman has turned his back on residents calling for support to a campaign to urgently dual the A120.

Harwich Labour councillor Ivan Henderson put a motion to Tendring’s full council on Tuesday night, calling for the authority to write a letter in support for calls to dual the Harwich stretch of the A120.

But Tendring Council chairman Mark Platt, a Conservative councillor, chose not to debate the issue and instead to put it off for members of the cabinet to discuss at a later date.

Mr Henderson said: “They know how important the issue of this road is.

“They had an opportunity to put their support behind the people of Harwich and turned their back on them on the night.

“It’s not good enough.

“It’s a safety issue, it affects people’s lives and livelihoods.

“I’m totally shocked, we thought everyone would just support it.

“It’s disgusting, it’s politics at its worst.”

Mr Henderson said he was told after the meeting it is procedure to defer motions to the cabinet or appropriate committees, but said other motions had been heard by the full council.

He added: “It’s disgraceful.”

UKIP councillor Mike Bush said: “It was outrageous, that meeting lasted less than 40 minutes but they didn’t have time to debate on the A120.

“Every motion was referred.

“If it doesn’t affect their lives they pass it off as it doesn’t matter.

“I support the dualling of the A120.

“We complain about potholes but we aren’t helping the issue by not dualling the A120 to prevent HGVs coming through the villages.

“Because these councillors don’t live here, they don’t see it.

“The A120 is a major issue that needs to be addressed and won’t go away.

“If we want to improve our economy we know this needs to be done - we are all in this together.”

Essex County Council’s councillo responsible for infrastructure, Kevin Bentley, this week gave his support to improving the trunk road.

Responding to a written question from Mr Henderson, he said: “We will take this issue up with Highways England and Department for Transport officials emphasising the need to repair the road quickly, and allow the necessary design, consultation and statutory processes to take place on the dualling which is likely to take several years to undertake.”

Neil Stock, Tendring Council leader, said deferring the motion at the authority’s full council meeting was the right thing to do.

He said: “I completely support the principle of what Ivan wants to do but I think this motion needs to be better and more powerful so I’m looking forward to discussing it with Ivan at cabinet so we can come up with robust wording to get as much support as we can.

“I’ve been campaigning for the Braintree to Colchester section as I recognise the benefit to Tendring and I want that reciprocated to us now as it will benefit the rest of the region.”