VILLAGERS living along one of the UK's most lethal roads are bracing themselves for scores of bikers preparing to use it for unofficial time trials.

Thousands of bikers will be leaving the Irish ferries after spending a week watching their heroes dice with death at the TT races in the Isle of Man.

Hundreds will be heading home via a notorious stretch of the A534 which passes through the village of Faddiley near Nantwich.

The road, labelled the most dangerous in the UK following an AA study, is already under special police surveillance because bikers use its tortuous bends to test their riding skills in un-official time trials.

Next week the dangers will be more than tenfold and the residents are dreading it.

Brindley and Faddiley Parish Council chairman David Latham, who has campaigned in harness with the police for years to bring in speed restrictions, said: 'It is bad enough every Saturday and Sunday when motorcyclists use the road as a kind of time trial circuit.

'They speed from one end of the village to the other to see how fast they can take the bends, and then turn around to do it the other way.'

Another parish councillor, Harold Ledwards, who lives right on the A534 at Smithy Bank Cottage, Faddiley, said: 'It's horrendous every weekend, never mind TT week.

'The speeds they travel at are unbelievable.'

The road has this week been named by police in Operation Clatter, a campaign they have launched to reduce the number of serious accidents on several blackspot roads in the area.

Sergeant Steve Griffiths, head of the Crewe and Nantwich Police Division traffic unit, said: 'Motorcyclists are putting themselves in danger and they obviously don't give a thought to the danger they put other people in.'

During the campaign the police have booked drivers and riders for dangerous driving, speeding, crossing double white lines and other traffic offences.

New 40mph speed limits have been agreed for the most dangerous stretch, and if there is no public objection by the end of July they will be implemented.