IS it too much to ask? All the residents of a Sarisbury Green cul-de-sac want is for their road to be made up with a Tarmac surface.

Instead, this is the boggy, bumpy mess filled with potholes they have to walk and drive through every day.

Now, after 17 years locked in dispute with highways chiefs, they are calling for urgent action to be taken before someone has an accident.

Childminder Sandra Hoyles said: "We all pay over £1,100 in council tax and this is what we get in return - it's scandalous.

"I don't drive and have to walk over the road with children. It's very dangerous and easy to trip and fall. There are no street lights so in the dark it's impossible to see where you're going.

"We have tried to fill the holes with shingle and sand but within a couple of days it just gets washed away.

"Anything would be better than what we have got now."

A year after 53-year-old Mrs Hoyles moved into her house in 1986 she received a letter from Fareham Council proposing to make up the section of road.

However, nothing happened until a couple of years later when Fareham Council, acting as agent for Hampshire County Council, put Tarmac over the first four metres of the road following maintenance work.

It left the rest untouched, saying it was a privately-owned road and the residents had to pay.

However, Mrs Hoyles and her neighbour Terry Gittoes, a 71-year-old retired shipping manager, point out their road has been adopted by the council on either side.

Fareham Council insists it is no longer acting as agent for Hampshire County Council and is therefore not responsible for maintaining the road.

A county council spokesman said: "My understanding from our specialist is that it is not a public highway but a privately-owned road.

"The upshot of that is any maintenance on the road will need to be paid for by residents whose houses front on to the road."

Now highways chiefs have agreed to send a council officer to look at the road within the next month and speak to residents about the problem.