A NURSE has endured sleepless nights for two years because of a noisy manhole cover on a busy road outside her house.

Colette Edwards has been imploring Southern Water to fix the drain since 2017 – but has been left frustrated by a lack of action.

She works long hours in her job but has had her rest repeatedly interrupted by the noise of cars driving over the cover.

The 43-year-old, who lives in Chalky Road, Portslade, said: “I can’t sleep at night because of the clanging.

“It’s affecting my life and it’s in my house, I have to live there. Surely if you were getting complaints about something for two years you would think that something is wrong.

“But the way Southern Water are treating it is unacceptable.”

She said every time a car drives over the manhole cover it makes a loud, unpleasant sound.

Chalky Road has several regular bus routes as well as a library, school and sports centre nearby, meaning vehicles are regularly travelling over the drain.

Colette said other residents had complained they were affected by the noise – the road is lined with many residential properties.

She said: “This has been going on for so long.

“I could live with it if it was a quiet street.

“But there is, for sure, a very loud clanging and it is happening at least every ten minutes.”

She involved Brighton and Hove City Council and said she had been supported by the authority in the dispute.

She said Southern Water had sent officials to the site but said: “Southern Water is adamant it can’t hear any noise.”

During the summer Southern Water agreed to put a “temporary fix” in place.

But Colette said this only made a difference for “about two weeks” before the loud noise returned.

She said: “Since then we have had a letter through the door from Southern Water to say they will be doing a permanent fix on October 28, though I’m not confident.”

Southern Water apologised to Colette, reinforcing the message that it intended to fix the drain by the end of the month.

A spokesman said: “We are incredibly sorry to hear about the issues experienced by this customer.

“Traffic management is needed to complete our work to replace this manhole cover and install new water metering as quickly and as safely as possible on this notoriously busy road.

“We hope to replace this cover at the end of October.

“We apologise again for the noise and inconvenience.”