AS the Sevenoaks Chronicle's truck ban campaign gathers strength, a prominent Riverhead parish councillor said he was considering launching his own battle to prevent lorries travelling through his village.

Parish council chairman Mike Massey said he wanted to organise a petition similar to the Sevenoaks' version, which aims to rid the High Street of unnecessary heavy goods traffic.

Mr Massey said his aim would be to ban HGVs from the A25, apart from those needing to make local deliveries.

He added he was concerned that if lorries were not allowed to travel down Sevenoaks High Street, more would be forced through Riverhead.

The Chronicle's campaign, organised in conjunction with the Sevenoaks Society, demands lorries should use the A21, A25, M25 and M26, instead of using Sevenoaks High Street as a cut-through

But Mr Massey said he was unhappy with the idea of more lorries travelling through the A25.

He said: "I am sure if I did get a petition going, and I went along Maidstone Road and Bradbourne Vale Road, a lot of those people would think 'we don't want all these extra lorries'.

Solution

"It's all very well getting the lorries out of Sevenoaks but what about the rest of us?"

"If it's not good for the town, why is it good for Riverhead?"

He added Riverhead has problems with heavy traffic because the roads were narrow and parts of it were in a conservation area. Mr Massey's solution is to send HGV drivers up the M25, to Junction 3 near Farningham, and across onto the M20.

He said traffic volume and air quality in the village were already at an unacceptable level.

And he feared the impact of the housing plans for the West Kent Cold Store development in Dunton Green and at Fort Halstead.

Another potential booster in the volume of traffic in the village is east facing slip-roads on the M26, which he said might result in traffic coming through Riverhead from Sevenoaks to access the road.

He added: "There's already too much traffic.

"I don't see why the lorries' Satnavs couldn't take them to the M20.

"That's what M-roads are for."

Sevenoaks Society chairman David Gamble said he thought Mr Massey's motorway motorway diversion idea was "very sensible".

He said: "Hopefully there will be somebody from Riverhead at the public meeting at the end of the month."

"It's important that everybody realizes there are consequences and if you do one thing in one area the problems pops up somewhere else."