ANNOYED residents feared their water supply would not be turned off in an emergency after road workers covered over vital access points.

People living in Mayfield Close, Southill, Weymouth, say contractors carrying out resurfacing work on behalf of the borough council laid a layer of Tarmac over the street without leaving spaces for manhole covers and stopcocks.

They claim that the workmen left two weeks ago before finishing the job properly.

Mother Jackie Hanham, 47, of Mayfield Close, said: "They started to resurface the road about five weeks ago but went away without completing the work.

"They had blocked over manhole covers and stopcocks and left white tape on the road as markers.

"They had covered over the stopcock outside my gateway and there was no marker there to find it.

"It was like that for at least two weeks.

"What would we have done to turn the water off in an emergency?"

She is angry that the contractors left Mayfield Close looking 'shabby' with pieces of tape lying across the road after paying out £600 for a dropped kerb to be installed outside her home as part of the resurfacing programme. Her neighbour Douglas Biddle said the stopcock for his property was also covered with Tarmac for at least two weeks. Borough council highways engineer Alan Muncaster said surfacing specialists JPCS had now completed all work in Mayfield Close. He added: "The manhole covers were masked off with tape to make it easier to see where they were. All the contractors had to do was peel off the tape to reveal the manhole covers. It was only minor work. Some stopcocks may not have been marked with tape so a metal detector was used to find them."

Mr Muncaster said it was an 'oversight' that JPCS did not carry out the final stage of the job earlier. He added that a major programme to resurface 30 borough roads, covering between 25,000 and 30,000sq m, was due to end next week.