A CAR crashed into a row of shops - causing substantial damage to properties and businesses.

The crash happened just before midnight on Sunday, June 14 when a silver Lexus collided with the front of a shop on London Road.

Essex Police said a man has been reported to court for careless driving following the smash in Westcliff.

Police attended the scene along with firefighters who carried out an initial assessment of the structural safety of the shop.

Police said the man will be summonsed to court at a later date.

The car caused damage to a Polish food shop and a fast food takeaway.

Agnieska Litvinovic, owner of Polish food shop AGA SKLEP, said she watched the incident on her CCTV camera and saw the car go straight through her shop.

Mrs Litvinovic, 30, said: “I am really surprised by this, it’s a horrible thing to happen, it is like something out of a film.

“We are very lucky as it could have been a lot worse, it is good it was late at night and there weren’t people on the pavement.

They opened the shop as normal on Monday but said there is a lot of damage that needs to be repaired.

The neighbouring shop, takeaway Sizzles, suffered even worse destruction.

The car knocked part of the shop wall down, smashed the glass door and damaged the whole shopfront.

Owner Lennard Ehlers said: “We live upstairs and we up there when it happened. We heard a huge thud and came down straight away. We were worried about the gas pipe but luckily it wasn’t too damaged."

He said the car also crashed into two bins during the collision and hit a lamppost. 

He said: "There was debris everywhere, it was a huge mess."

Isabel Ehlers, co-owner, added: “For all the years we have been here there has never been a crash like this.

“We live in the flat above and it is strange because one daughter woke up straight away and the other slept through it all, which is crazy as there was so much noise!”