People living next to a narrow roadway linking two Sudbury housing estates have hit out after a bus company announced it intends to use it as part of a new bus route.

From November 4, Chambers Coaches wants to send its No. 753 bus down the link road between Chaucer Road and Clermont Avenue to take passengers to the Tesco supermarket off Springlands Way.

The link road was required as part of a planning condition dating back to 1995 between Babergh District Council, the developer Persimmon and the county council highways department.

In July 2001, Babergh’s development committee decided the link should be for pedestrians, cyclists, buses and emergency vehicles only. Despite the route being ‘signed off’ in March 2012, after more than seven years in the planning process, temporary barriers remain in place.

In the meantime, nearby residents say it has become a “rat-run” for motorcyclists, four-wheel drive vehicles and vans, which are using the road illegally.

At at Sudbury Town Council highways committee meeting this week, Glynnis Kellaway, who lives by the link, said: “I can’t believe they are even considering sending a double- decker bus through there.

“In winter, when there is snow and ice, people on the estate can’t get up that road in cars, so how is a bus going to manage?”

Another resident, Leon Spall, said they were originally told by developers the link road would be used by a “small community bus”, and that suitable permanent barriers or rising bollards would be erected to prevent misuse of the road.

He added: “Babergh’s Safer Neighbourhood team told us they don’t have the resources to police this road and stop it from happening.

“We feel we have been sold short by the developer, the highways department and now we find out we are living on a major bus route.”

A county council spokesman said a traffic order was currently being written and would make it so that only emergency vehicles and buses could use the link road.

She said: “The whole traffic order is not yet in place which will prohibit other vehicles from using the link, but buses and emergency vehicles could in principle use it now.”