RESIDENTS say their health is suffering because their homes are too close to an industrial estate.

Housing association tenants in Marconi Road, Leyton, say sawdust from neighbouring GBN haulage company is blowing on to their homes.

Residents are complaining of sore eyes and say the sawdust is causing hayfever-like symptoms and aggravating respiratory problems.

Maxine Fellows said: "I cannot open my windows, I cannot go in my garden, I cannot hang my washing out. I cannot have my daughter playing outside.

"She has asthma, and she is always coughing and wheezing, especially at night. A lot of the kids around here have runny noses."

Neighbour Saheda Bawa said: "The dust is on everything in our houses. This does not only affect us, it affects our children. We need to have a healthy environment.

"Most of us do not have a choice. We cannot just sell and move out."

The residents alerted Waltham Forest's environmental health team, but the council says there are no regulations that cover the situation.

An Environment Agency spokesman said it will be sending a team to GBN to discuss the matter.

GBN managing director Nicholas Thompson said the open-air stockpiles would usually be sent away to be made into chipboard, but were currently higher than normal.

He said: "We have a warehouse and a six-metre fence between the sawdust and the houses but at the moment the piles are breaching the height of the fence. I have not seen them this large, ever."

He said he did not think the stockpiles were a problem.

Mr Thompson noted that dust would have built up because GBN's yard had not been hosed down due to recent water shortages. He also said that GBN had been in the area for more than 20 years, a decade before the houses were built, and that the area was a well-established industrial zone.

Resident Aisha Tai agreed, adding: "Planning permission for these houses should never have been given."

A council spokesman said: "There is a demand to provide new housing to meet the needs of a growing population.

"Often this is accommodated on former commercial sites on the edge of industrial areas. Residential and commercial uses have long co-existed in different parts of London, but there are occasions when residents experience nuisance.

"The council will always look into any concerns residents may have."

A spokesman for housing association East Thames, which manages some of the homes, said: "We have had a dust problem reported.

"We will investigate and will help and advise our tenants as best we can."