Cameras to catch lorries flouting weight limits

Councillor Philip Whitehead said heavy vehicles have been ignoring signs leading to a bridge in his Wiltshire ward

Lorry drivers flouting weight restriction laws could soon be caught on camera and prosecuted.

Wiltshire Council last month approved a plan to protect weak, weight-restricted sections of road, including bridges, by installing mobile cameras that recognise number plates.

The council said it was now speaking to police to set the plan in motion. Under a successful lorry watch scheme in 2012, volunteers monitored a bridge in Bradford on Avon, reporting 1,000 drivers to police.

Councillor Philip Whitehead, who put forward the new plan, said there were between 200 and 300 sections of road in the county that could benefit from cameras.

Mr Whitehead said lorry drivers had been taking a shortcut on Spaniels Bridge Road when travelling between Devizes and Coate, which is in his ward.

A bridge on the road has a 7.5 tonne weight limit, which he estimates saves drivers about four minutes, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Unless they are dropping off or picking up goods, lorry drivers are breaking the law.

Mr Whitehead said there was nowhere on the shortcut where loading or unloading could happen.

He said the Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson, had assured him that officers would "act on evidence supplied to them".

The previous lorry watch scheme was discontinued when lorry numbers fell from "20 or 30" a day to none, the councillor said.

'They'll stop doing it'

"[The volunteers] would sit there and take photographs and write the number plates down and they were happy because they nicked somebody that day," Mr Whitehead said.

"New technology allows us to put one camera at one end, one camera at the other end, record the time and if they're not dropping off in the middle you give that evidence to the police and they will prosecute.

"When you start catching them, they'll stop doing it."

Drivers caught flouting the rules face a fine and a possible three points on their licence.