A DISABLED man told how he has been fighting for five years to get better access to his car from his home.

Simon Clark, 44, was left paralysed from the waist down after suffering a fall in 2011.

Echo:

Dangerous - the verge

Although he has had spinal surgery to restore some of his mobility, most of the time he has to rely on a wheelchair to get around, and is constantly in and out of hospital.

He claims he has been passed between authorities since 2014 in trying to get an access path from the front of his home in Barrington Gardens, Basildon, to his car on the road, across the huge grass verge between them.

Mr Clark said: “I have to turn left along the path until I reach a dropped curb. I then have to travel in the road to get to my car.

“If I am having a good day and feel up to walking I have to walk across the grass then try to get down a very slippery sloping tarmac to get into the road.

“When it rains it is very very slippery on the grass and the tarmac curbs.

“They have sloped them rather than make them straight so you slip down into the road.

“I have a disabled marked bay in the road where my car is but it’s just dangerous for me to get to it.

“The section of road where my disabled bay is has also collapsed and the section of road lifts up when a car or lorry drives over it.

“I get a lot of people tooting their horns at me when getting into the car, because they’re impatient, and the road can get quite busy at times.”

Mr Clark, who lives with his wife and two children, said he has had no concrete response from Essex Highways about whether anything can be done, and fears he may be forced to carry on enduring the dangerous conditions.

He added: “I’ve just never had a definitive answer from anyone.

“I’ve tried Basildon councillors too, they said talk to Highways, so I went to Highways, and Highways just don’t seem to want to know.

“Then I’m sent back to the council.

“I’m just being passed from pillar to post really and nothing has changed at all.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

A spokesman for Essex Highways said: “We’re sorry to hear about this resident’s access issues.

“We would ask that the resident provides details to their local Essex county councillor, so that they can take the issue to the local highways panel for consideration.”