A CAR smashed through the wall of an elderly couple’s home at an accident blackspot.

Kenneth Buck, 76, and wife Carol, 72, were woken at about 3.30am on Monday, by a loud crash when a vehicle ploughed through the garden wall of their bungalow on Elmsleigh Drive, Leigh, and smashed its way through a utility room extension.

The female driver of the car, which is understood to have been rented, fled the scene.

Mr Buck said: “We were both fast asleep in bed and suddenly the place absolutely rocked.

We thought ‘what the hell was that?’ and went from room to room trying to find out what had happened.

“It was onlywhen I went into the kitchen and could see flashing hazard lights, I went into the utility room and saw this car’s nose sticking up at me.

“I didn’t see the driver, but I heard laughing.

“I wasn’t very happy to think someone was running away from that accident and found it funny.

“The place had completely collapsed so we had to get the insurance people to dismantle it.”

Mr Buck said it was the latest of a string of accidents and near-misses on the corner of Manchester Drive, which were usually caused by people speeding down Elmsleigh Drive.

He said: “It’s a bit of an ongoing thing. There are so many accidents on this corner. It’s notorious – we’ve had three in the past fewweeks alone.

“We’re down quite a steep dip here and people come racing down from the traffic lights at the top of the road, from Blenheim Chase, and, if the lights are green, they put their foot down thinking if they speed up, they will make the lights at London Road. But all it takes is for someone to come out at Manchester Drive and not a day goes by where you don’t hear someone blowing their horn because of a nearmiss.

“We keep complaining, but the council has told us there’s nothing it can do about it.”

Cheryl Hindle-Terry, Southend Council’s road safety leader, said: “In March this year we installed flashing speed warning signs in Elmsleigh Drive, between Manchester Drive and Blenheim Chase, to emphasise the 30 mph speed limit for drivers, in response to concerns from residents.

“We have not yet received full details from Essex Police about this recent accident.

However, the only recorded collision involving injury at this junction was in May 2014.”

A police spokesman said: “Police were called shortly after 3.35am on Monday, April 13, to reports a Ford Focus had hit the wall of a property in Elmsleigh Drive, Leigh.

“The collision resulted in structural damage to the building.

“A 33-year-old woman from Leigh was arrested in connection with the incident and questioned.

“She was later released without charge."