High Peak villagers call for crackdown on lorries using weight-restricted road

Bathamgate Road in Peak Dale. Photo: Google Maps.

Clerk to Wormhill and Green Fairfield Parish Council, Barry Peirson, has highlighted residents’ concerns about lorries seemingly over the 7.5 ton weight limit ‘thundering’ along the streets through Peak Dale.

He said: “There is a weight restriction there for a reason and that is because it is dangerous to allow such big vehicles along residential streets.

“The lorries are thundering past people’s houses while they sleep and in the cover of darkness, ignoring the road signs which say they shouldn’t be there, as they think people won’t notice.

“But it is becoming a big problem for those who are being woken up at before 5am with the lorries in low gears struggling to get up Monkey Brow and if the lorries are empty they are even noisier as they bang on the roads.”

Barry said some HGV drivers appeared to be disregarding the quarry access restriction at Peak Forest on the A623 and travelling through Smalldale village onto Bathamgate Road, instead of keeping to the A623 and the A6 through Dove Holes along the official route into the quarries.

Back in 2013, Derbyshire County Council said four vehicles had been identified as using the weight restriction road, but investigations showed they had ‘legitimate access’.

A county council spokesman said: “When we receive reports from residents of vehicles allegedly flouting restrictions we contact the operators to establish if vehicles had a legitimate reason for being there. Where sufficient reports are received other measures may be taken, carrying out checks in the most complained-about locations if appropriate.”

Sergeant Denis Murphy, from the High Peak Safer Neighbourhood Team, said: “We are aware of residents’ concerns regarding weight restrictions in Smalldale.

“Our Roads Policing Unit has been deployed to the area and will continue to carry out patrols. I ask the community to pass details of any offending by vehicles to us with as much information as possible.

“Where it seems offences may have been committed, an appropriate and proportionate investigation will take place.”