FOR the past five weeks we have been fighting your corner when it come to the dreadful array of potholes blighting our roads.

The Gazette's Driving Us Potty campaign has seen councillors, taxi drivers, cyclists, drivers and irate residents speaking out about the poor quality of Billericay roads.

Over the course of the campaign we have collected evidence of some of the widest, deepest and most dangerous craters around.

That bulging dossier of evidence has now been presented to Essex County Council.

We had originally hoped to point the holes out to highways chief Cllr Norman Hume in person but sadly he was too busy to join us.

The damning file shows the extent of the problem in High Cloister, where residents have started a petition to get 100 holes filled in along their relatively small side road.

It also shows how drivers entering the town from the A129 are greeted by an appalling network of vicious holes close to the Sun Corner roundabout.

Even the High Street is not exempt from wheel-scraping caverns – we counted more than 20 holes and think it is about time the council made improvements.

Gary Harmes, 37, a member of Billericay-based cycling club Essex Roads, said: "For cyclists the roads are very dangerous. If you hit a pothole it could easily throw you off or into the path of a car."

The vice-chairman of Basildon Private Hire Association, David Slyth, has also backed our calls for urgent repairs. He said: "We need to start seeing repairs, not just people in fluorescent jackets pointing at holes."

Since launching our campaign the council has sat up and taken note, repairing some holes, but we are demanding a more radical approach.

Our front page on February 18, showing the size of the problem in Perry Street, was acted on immediately and improvements were made in Norsey Road. Other areas that still need work are Laindon Road, Noak Hill Road and Perry Street.

Essex County Council spokesman Scott Wilson said: "Improving the quality of our highways is top priority and the condition of our road network currently ranks in the top quarter of all local authority areas in the country. However, I want to make our roads even better.

"To address this we have made available significant extra funding towards improving road surfaces.

"Current schemes due to commence include Sun Street, Chapel Street, Billericay High Street, Jackson's Lane and High Cloister."