A RESIDENT has written to every member of Stockton Borough Council in his continuing fight to stop a phone company digging up his road.

Johnny Johnson, of Tunstall Road, Hartburn, first approached the Audit Commission about repairs to pavements dug up by Comcast, later ntl, in 1997.

Since then, he has campaigned to stop the council paying for the repairs, which he claims should legally be carried out by the communications company.

A recent audit report criticised the council's failure to explain to residents why it carried out £330,000 of work on the roads, but cleared the authority of any wrong-doing.

Now Mr Johnson has written to all 55 Stockton councillors about proposals for ntl to dig up newly-repaired roads to put in more cables.

He said: "It has been announced that the cables already provided by Comcast/ntl are insufficient to cater for the growing number of clients, and pavements and roads will therefore again have to be dug up so that more can be installed."

Mr Johnson is asking the council to ensure that the phone company repairs the pavements that it digs up in this latest round of work.

He claims that more than 90 roads in the area damaged by the company have been wrongly repaired by the council over a two-year period.

A council spokeswoman said that new work by ntl started at the end of October and four kilometres of extra cables were to be laid.

She said the council had not received any complaints and expected there to be minimum disruption.

Any plans for more cables will be discussed in the new year.