At the shoreline seven families live at the end of Castor Bay Road, despite the idyllic setting their lives are being made a misery by the state of their road.

The residents have been campaigning for years to have the road which leads to their homes resurfaced but nothing has been done.

Bernard McGibbon is the third generation of his family to live in the area and said he just wanted a parity with other residents across the borough.

He said: "We have been told this road is a public right of way but nobody wants to take responsibility for the upkeep.

"It has gotten so bad that we have been thinking we should fix and pay for the upkeep of the road but because it is a public right of way we can't stop people using it.

"There is no street lighting, the road is torn apart and when some agency wants to come along to do work we get no notice of the work or the disruption that it causes.

"We can't even get our bins collected from the house we all have to walk over half a mile to get to the end of the road because the bin lorries cant get near us.

"If there is an emergency, finding the road is the first problem and then if the ambulance or fire engine could make it up is another matter."

He continued: "We are just asking for parity, there are other roads around the borough and close to her which are well maintained in the same kind of setting as ours.

"I have talked about it with council officials and they said something would be done but we are still waiting and it has been years.”

Councillor Kieran Corr said he understood the frustrations of the residents, he said: "Somebody has to be responsible for the road and maintain it.

"There are families and children affected by this road and it needs to be fixed, nobody wants to consider what might happen on a dark night if two cars were to meet.

A spokesman for the council said it would be looking into the problem.