Pyjama-clad children protested in the street after they were woken up by council contractors who dug up their stretch of road for the third time.

Contractors in Victoria Road, Kingston, began work at 8am on Saturday, June 30.

It was the third time in six months that the same stretch of road has been worked on.

Father-of-two Rizwan Khaliq said: “My children, who are poorly at the moment with coughs and chest infections, woke up crying as a result of the noise.

“I am sure others in the street will feel as upset as me about this nonsense. I find it very odd and I do not understand why the same stretch of road has been dug up a third time.

“And what was so urgent that digging needed to start at 8am on a Saturday morning? Would it really have made a massive difference if work started at 10.30am?”

Mr Khaliq, who runs Penny Appeal, a charity dedicated to eliminating poverty across the world and who is also a trustee of Kingston mosque, had taken the weekend off to rest and relax with his family.

He said: “It was a wasted day. The children fell asleep watching cartoons by 1pm because they were so tired.”

Residents in the street were not told about the early morning roadworks, which lasted for more than two hours.

A spokesman from Kingston Council said: “A council contractor had been commissioned to install cycle stands on the corner of Victoria Road with Albert Road.

“The highways and transportation team were not satisfied with the standard of work and requested the contractor return to the site and finish the works to their required standard.

“It was also decided that during the contractor’s return it would be a good opportunity to address another area of the footway that has been collecting large amounts of rain water in recent months to which residents had been complaining about an impassable puddle.”

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We cover areas including Kingston, Norbiton, Surbiton, Berrylands, Tolworth, New Malden and Old Malden, Chessington, Hook, Malden Rushett and Worcester Park