Residents celebrate HGV restriction ruling

5:57am Thursday 15th May 2008

Comments (4)   Have your say »

By Jon Reeve »

A group of residents can now look forward to a better night's sleep after suffering for years due to hundreds of heavy lorries using a country lane round the clock.

Those living in Burnetts Lane in Horton Heath are celebrating what they hope is a significant victory in their battle to stop the further expansion of Chalcroft Distribution Park.

A total of 85 households banded together after becoming fed up with articulated lorries driving past their homes - sometimes at an average of one every seven minutes.

After two years of campaigning, their complaints led to a hearing when deputy traffic commissioner Philip Brown imposed restrictions on three of the four firms operating from the site.

Burnetts Lane Residents' Association hopes that the ruing will lead to restrictions next year on the site's largest operator. Association chairman David McNaughton said: "We got to the point last year where we had 350 HGVs a day in a little country lane, many of them full-size artics.

"It had got out of hand. We've got lots of young families and elderly people here, but with more than 100 of those lorries coming through the night we've no chance of sleeping.

"Houses shake when lorries pass, cracks have been appearing in buildings and you can't walk down the road because it's not safe. We're pleased with the ruling because stopping the artics is a massive step forward."

In the ruling, Mr Brown accepted Chalcroft is "both environmentally and technically suitable to remain as an operating centre for goods vehicles".

But he decided lorries should not travel faster than 20mph along the road, and those weighing more than 26 tonnes will no longer be allowed to travel along Burnetts Lane between 9pm and 5am.

Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne said the ruling set an important precedent that vindicated the campaign to show Chalcroft should not have been used as a depot.

He said: "It grew up almost by accident, and the residents have now won a major step forward."