FEARS have been raised there will be a tragic accident on the A120 unless the road is dualled.

Stuart Petre, of Churchill Court in Dovercourt, and his wife Faye use the road for work and to go on trips out almost daily.

But the 51-year-old said the current single carriageway is “dangerous” and overdue for major work.

He said: “What’s really dangerous about it is you get a lot of people off the boat that don’t know where they are going, which is fair enough as they are in a foreign country.

“Then you have the lorries and there is a huge amount of lorries - nearly 400 coming off the ferry in the morning. They are supposed to stagger them coming off but the lorries wait around and then go off in fives and sixes.

“Then you get lunatics going off to Colchester to work and they are overtaking.

“That’s causing loads of accidents - I was overtaken by someone the other day who must have been doing 100mph.

“It’s a very dangerous stretch of road and a dual carriageway would solve that problem.”

Stuart fears the Bathside Bay container port will never be built, which is where it has been hoped cash to upgrade the A120 will come from. He added: “Lots of new houses will be going up - I think over the next five years there will be another 1,000 houses here.

“That’s another 2,000 cars as most houses have two. We will need the A120 to be a dual carriageway.

“Sooner or later there will be an almighty accident - it’s on the cards.

“It’s embarrassing too, this is meant to be a gateway to Europe.

“It’s ridiculous, it should have been dualled years ago.”

Stuart’s wife Faye had to have her alloy wheel replaced twice on her car after hitting potholes on the A120 just months apart.

The damage, including a new tyre, cost £550 to repair.

Stuart said: “When Faye did it the alloy was egg-shaped.

“Then I got my son from Newbury and was two miles from home when we hit a pothole and shattered the alloy - this was February.”

To sign the Standard’s petition calling for the Department of Transport to fund the dualling of the A120 visit petition.parliament.uk/

petitions/221123.