RESIDENTS of a once-quiet Darlington street say their lives are being blighted by a new housing development which is progressing without any regard for their concerns.

The Esh Group is behind the 76-home estate on the brownfield site of the former Eastbourne School, off Yarm Road.

Councillors approved the development as it will help plug a shortfall in affordable housing in Darlington, but existing residents have had to suffer the effects of a series of building blunders.

These include one resident having his coal bunker and adjoining garden wall knocked down and another two properties having their fences damaged.

But the main concern among the residents whose properties back onto the new estate is that the new houses are being built at least four foot higher than the existing homes on The Causeway.

This means that even the ground floor windows of some of the new houses overlook the established properties’ land, fuelling residents’ concerns about privacy and potential flooding from water running down into their homes and gardens.

Esh has submitted a planning application to Darlington Council to alter the ground levels but building work is already well underway on the higher ground.

The council’s planning committee deferred its decision on whether to allow the land alterations until they have visited the site for themselves.

Lawrence Craggs, a resident of The Causeway who spoke at Wednesday’s planning committee meeting, conceded that the new houses are unlikely to be pulled down but he questioned why they were allowed to continue being built when the higher land level had not been approved.

He said: “Our idea is that they have altered the land level so they didn’t have to get rid of all the rubble; they just flattened it down and built on top of it.”

Mr Craggs’s wife, Judith, added: “We just assumed the houses would be built at the same level as the school was, why should it be any different?

“We have been treated really shabbily; they have completely ignored us as if we are absolutely nothing.”

The Craggs' neighbour Tom Clarey shares their view.

His garden and bungalow is dwarfed by the new homes being built alongside his garden.

“We are mostly retired round here,” he said. “We bought a bungalow for the quiet and the privacy and we are losing all that.

“It is destroying people’s lives and they just don’t care.”

No one from Esh was available for comment.