ELDERLY residents have been left distressed and confused after blunders by Highways England mistakenly led to them believing they could be about to lose their homes.

It's not the first time during the Lower Thames Crossing planning that residents have been given misinformation about the future of their homes and the Thames Crossing Action Group says it is time the authority improved its act.

They also want to know what highly paid managers of the scheme actually do!

The action group was alerted to the distress of residents who had received letters from Highways and have now had it confirmed that errors have been made.

A statement by the action group says: "In response to our email to Highways England we have now received a reply confirming that Highways England have sent more letters with errors to residents with regard to the proposed Lower Thames Crossing.

"Yet another example of the inadequacies of Highways England.

"The matter was first bought to our attention when residents started contacting us with serious concerns over the fact they were receiving letters from HE telling them that their property/land is now within, or partially within, the development boundary following the changes announced as part of the Supplementary Consultation, which is running for eight weeks from 29 January to 25 March.

"In some cases it was blatantly obvious the error had been made, such as some residents, aged in their 80s and 90s, receiving letters from HE telling them their property was now within the development boundary, when clearly according to the HE maps they are not.

"We have to stress that this only affects some of the residents who have been sent letters, not all, and those affected can now expect a letter confirming the error, explaining the correct situation, and offering an apology."

Leading campaigner Laura Blake adds: "This is not the first time that this has happened, there have been letters previously sent by HE that contained errors like this. As an action group we do not find this at all acceptable. We have therefore just sent the following email to Highways England in response to their admission that these further errors have been made.

'Thank you for your letter and confirmation of the serious error that has been made in sending these letters. Firstly, since you quote that they should have had a letter purely explaining that they may be eligible to claim for Part 1 compensation, would you please be so kind as to explain exactly what that means.

'It seems a common theme from HE that terminology is used when communicating with people that is not standard plain English, that most will be familiar with and understand.

'I could hazard a guess that it will be that they may be eligible to make a claim a year after LTC opens, if it goes ahead, but I would prefer to be provided with an explanation rather than make an assumption please! Residents to whom you are writing will not likely know what this means either, so surely some kind of plain English explanation should be standard procedure?'

"We are also questioning the lack of a permanant new LTC Project Director to replace Tim Jones who resigned in July last year. Alongside questioning what exactly the interim LTC Project Director and his interim Deputy are actually being paid to do considering it is Chris Taylor (Director of Complex Infrastructure Programme, Highways England) who has made all the announcements and foreword to the LTC Supplementary Consultation."