'˜Do the work, yes, but don't do it after 11pm!'

The 26-year-old was startled when he was woken up by workers drilling the rail bridge in Portsea opposite his home in Ordnance Row.

Since Monday, workers have been putting up scaffolding at around 10pm before drilling the bridge and then taking the scaffolding down at 6am.

Josh, a self-employed electrician, has said he has been late for jobs this week due to oversleeping after being kept up most of the night.

He said: ‘They’re on the pavement by the road doing it.

‘They’re making a ridiculous noise.

‘Once they’ve got it up they then start a generator to hack into the brick with disk cutter.

‘The first night I went out and they told me it was six in the morning I was in hysterics.

‘We’ve got single glazing on all our properties as they’re listed buildings. Nobody wants to help.’

Josh said he was not told the work was due to start.

But Network Rail said in a statement it had issued letters to neighbouring properties.

A spokesman added: ‘We always make sure that when we need to carry out upgrades that have an impact on our neighbours, we notify them with plenty of time in advance.

‘In this instance we sent out letters to all properties within 250m of the work site, so we’re disappointed to hear that it hasn’t reached one of our neighbours and sorry for any disturbance that this has caused.

‘We are currently carrying out upgrades to the brickwork in the arch of the bridge that had started to push out towards the track, and during the work a lot of dust is created that could pose a health risk to some pedestrians.

‘Therefore, we have chosen to carry out the works at night when there are fewer pedestrians around.

He added: ‘I’d like to thank all of our neighbours for their patience while we carried out the works.’

The work was due to have finished by late yesterday night, the spokesman added.