Residents in Hoo Road and Aggborough Crescent are also up in arms about lorries blocking side roads and dropping dirt.

"I have been contacted by angry residents about the complete lack of consideration shown by the developers for local residents and the local area," said Wyre Forest district councillor Peter Dyke who has taken up the case with his wife and fellow councillor Helen.

"The developers are being bad neighbours."

He said he would be contacting the district council about the hedge, which ran for several hundred yards and was more than 30ft high in places. It was protected under planning conditions but has now been taken away completely, he added.

Brenda Hiam, of Aggborough Crescent, said everyone she had spoken to was angry.

"There is muck everywhere," she said. "It's absolutely filthy and there are queues of lorries."

She said she was particularly angry about the hedge, which contained a number of elm trees.

District head of planning Mike Parker said the original conditions for Prowting Developments had required the hedge to be kept.

He said he was considering taking the matter to the council's enforcement committee, which would then decide whether to take action which could lead to the courts.

"The developers can't put the old hedge back but they can provide a replacement," he said. "I know residents have been expressing concern about the disruption. We have to take the view that it is a temporary problem."

A spokeswoman for Westbury Homes, which took over the development from Prowting and is clearing the site and the old college site, said a huge amount of work was involved and some disruption was inevitable.

"It can't be helped," she said. "As developers, we are sensitive about it and we try and do our best."

She said the firm had taken expert advice about the hedge and it could not be saved.

But retired planning officer Dave Collins, who lives in Aggborough Crescent, said the developers had cut away the embankment so much it had caused the hedge to be unsafe.

"They had to cut it down after that," he said. "We are left without a screen and we can see sheds and rooftops we don't want to see."

He called for the council to insist on a substantial replacement.