A GRANDMOTHER has described the 'horrific' moment a car careered into the garden where her granddaughter had been playing a short time before.

The female driver escaped uninjured after losing control of her car on a turn into Long Lane, Hargrave, and crashing through the hedge of Eunice Willis's front garden on Tuesday afternoon.

Mrs Willis's granddaughter, two-year-old Lizzy Clutton, had been playing football on the lawn of Golden Nook Farm, Hargrave, throughout the morning before deciding to go inside.

Mrs Willis said: 'The first thing I knew about it was when the driver, a young girl, rang the door bell to tell me what had happened. I looked out and saw the car straddled across our hedge.

'It was awful to think me and Lizzy had just been out there. I asked her if she had seen the signs all the way up the road and she said that she didn't think she was going that fast, but she had obviously lost control of the car.

'The whole thing is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare.'

Motorists, who use the road to commute from Tarporley and Tattenhall to Chester, faced tailbacks in the afternoon when the car had to be winched to safety.

Mrs Willis said: 'We called the police but they weren't interested in coming out because no one had been hurt. When they have come before they have agreed something needs to be done but they don't even know about all of the accidents.' The grandmother claims the dangerous bend has resulted in three similar crashes in less than a year.

She said: 'Each time it happens the cars clear a two foot wall that's underneath the hedge so they must be going at some speed.

'We know if we put up a strong fence then there would be a death. So how can we? We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves.'

The frightening incident echoed a similar one last August when another car left the road after turning the corner and flew towards the lawn, narrowly missing Lizzy's pram.

'It was horrific. The brake was on the pram and had it been any closer I wouldn't have had time to take if off and move her.

Mrs Willis added: 'We lie in bed at night waiting to hear a smash.'

Despite some correspondence between the family and Cheshire County Council's Highway Department, resulting in larger chevrons along the road, they feel more should be done to prevent what they see as an inevitable tragedy.

A spokesperson for the Highways Department said: 'We haven't heard from Mrs Willis since a letter following an accident in April 2005.

'We are informed of accidents by the police if personal injury has occurred.

'What we would encourage Mrs Willis and anyone else to do is get in contact with us and tell us of any accidents that occur but don't result in personal injury and we would be happy to come out and discuss the situation.'