Viridor Lorry "Just Falls Over!"
28th February 2005
Another of the out-of-area industrial waste, articulated vehicle has "just fallen over" on the notorious B4069 Lyneham Banks Road. The gigantic Viridor six-axled heavy vehicle was seen just before dinner time, crashing into the brick wall fencing of a local house in Bradenstoke, on the curve just before Zebedee Powney's new garage.

The accident which closed off the undulating road for well over 12 hours, caused problems to motorists while diversions had been set up. Mr Paul Osborne, who lives in the house where the lorry came to a thundering stop, was preparing to leave for work and heard a shuttering bang and felt the ground jolt. As he looked out of his bedroom window, to his shock and horror, he saw the industrial lorry had overspilled the waste into his driveway, blocking the entrance completely. The incident brought back memories of all the other crashes on this stretch of road.

Mr Osborne spoke of his big worry that the wall the Viridor lorry has just crashed into, is a load bearing wall for the foundations to his property. The rescue crews immediately reappraised their recovery priorities and brought in a structural engineer to assess the planned uplift operation.

Several other implications prevented the vehicle being uprighted and removed straight away. The Environment Agency were called to assess the risk of the load on the vehicle and the oil and hydraulic oil that was spilling from the damaged vehicle. The Viridor driver escaped with slight bruising.

An eyewitness who saw the lorry over turn, could not believe his eyes. Mr Andy Jones from Saxon Street Chippenham was traveling along the B4069 towards Chippenham when he saw the large blue lorry coming up the hill.

He recalls seeing the lorry leaning over, but thought this was abnormal owing to the gradient and camber of the road. Mr Jones said " I remember seeing the back wheels of the trailer lifting off the ground and thought that's not quite right, I would say that it was going quite fast, but obviously because the vehicle was approaching me, it was difficult to judge the drivers speed, but it look fast for the road conditions."

"It looked like 40mph, the vehicle started to lean and just as I was passing it, it went over, with a bang" he said. "I quickly turned my car round in the next layby and parked in front of the overturned lorry to see if the driver was okay. Fortunately he was out of the vehicle looking a bit shocked. " Mr Jones called the emergency services immediately.

A driver of a white van, who did not want to be named, who was immediately behind the Viridor lorry as it went over, said "we were amazed that he lorry just fell over." We asked what speed he thought the driver was doing and he immediately said "Oh he wasn't going fast, it just leant over and fell into the wall"

A Wiltshire Police spokesman at the scene said "We will have to take a look at the drivers tachograph which should show the speed of the vehicle at the time."

The driver of the Viridor waste track was phoning back to his company base in Monmouthshire to report the accident was over heard to be saying that he "was traveling up the hill and the lorry just fell over".

This latest HGV incident has brought back memories of a similar accident in May 2000, frighteningly, one hundred yards down the hill. A similar articulated vehicle from Churngold industrial waste overturned. The 38-tonne lorry laden with rubble overturned on a bend and was halted in its path by an old oak tree. Since then Dauntsey Lock residents have been calling for a speed limit through their village in a bid to stop cars and trucks careering off a steep hill. This latest lorry crash, highlights the dangers of the hill and today's incident rekindles concerns to get a weight restriction imposed on the hazardous and undulating road.

Lyneham Village Online has been running a 'Village Voice' section, in which villagers highlight concerns to get addressed by local authorities. The frequency and volume of Heavy Goods Vehicles traveling through our village and up through the B4069 Lyneham Banks route has been an ongoing problem since we started this topic in December 2003.

Many villagers have expressed valid concern over Viridor Waste Company based in Monmouthshire, bringing thousands of tonnes of out-of-area industrial waste into our county for disposal in the Viridor owned landfill site of Compton Bassett.

Today's Viridor waste truck was laiden with over 20 tonnes of waste, and is one of the hundreds of 44 tonne vehicles being brought up through the Dauntsey Vales to the Calne area.

The Lyneham and Bradenstoke Parish council have been addressing this concern to the company and Wiltshire Highways are aware of the concern too. If you believe that the industrial lorries are to be prevented from using this hazardous road and we should have a weight restriction imposed immediately, please write your thoughts in our village forum. To follow the thread/story so far. Click Here