Villagers plead for lorry ban (From Witney Gazette)

Villagers plead for lorry ban

9:00am Wednesday 15th March 2006 in Witney By David Horne

A LORRY ploughed into two parked cars in Bampton prompting calls for HGVs to be banned from using the village.

An MRS Distribution lorry on its way to make a pick up for Smufit Corrugated Sheet Sales, of Witney, was in collision with a car parked in High Street, at 4am on Friday.

The car was pushed 20ft along the road and hit another car.

Lesley O'Keeffe was awoken by a huge crash and went downstairs to find her car had been wrecked.

She said: "It was like a bomb going off. My car is completely beyond repair and my neighbour's is badly damaged.

"You should be able to park outside your house and expect your car to be safe. HGVs shouldn't be driving through our village, especially not at night. There are no lights.

"Some of the drivers know the area and just use it as a shortcut, but my house is a listed building and it has no foundations which means it shakes whenever a lorries passes.

"We have had lorries coming through for years, they should be banned."

Sue Helm lives in High Street and is part of Residents Action on Traffic, a group set up about three years ago because of concerns over speeding traffic and HGVs.

She said: "The problem is when they close a road and drivers find a new diversion they carry on using it even after the main road is open.

"HGVs should be banned from coming through, they are damaging the roads and making the houses shake. "

"We have written to the county council and complained so many times. We just feel like we are continually fobbed off.

"It's like banging your head against a brick wall."

David Robertson, county council member for transport, said: "I am always concerned about communities bothered by HGVs but I also have to be concerned about goods being delivered within areas asking for these lorries to be banned.

"Simply putting a sign up would not work, it would have to be policed.

"We would have to consider very carefully banning HGVs from Bampton, if all requests from the villages to ban HGVs were granted then no goods could be delivered and people would complain."