Council urges ban of HGVs over 7.5 tonnes in Eglinton and Clady

Residents of Eglinton have been ‘tortured’ by Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) that have damaged cars and mounted kerbs on the Woodvale Road in Eglinton, councillors were told at the November meeting of full council last Thursday night.

Alliance councillor Rachael Ferguson supported calls for the imposition of a weight restriction in the border village of Clady but said similar consideration should be given to a ban in Eglinton.

She was speaking after the Castlederg-based Sinn Féin councillor Ruairí McHugh proposed a motion that the Council ‘supports the demand from the people of Clady for the proposal to impose a 7.5 tonne HGV weight restriction upon traffic through their village and calls on the Minister of Infrastructure to urgently conclude the long drawn-out consultation process and to now make a decision’.

The DUP proposed an amendment that this be widened to include an urgent ‘reassessment of the current traffic conditions on the B118 Woodvale Road in Eglinton in order to identify suitable traffic calming measures and to initiate a consultation to take place with Eglinton residents on the impact of the high volume of 7.5 tonne HGVs’.

Colr. Ferguson, supporting the amendment, said: “We have had similar situations here in Eglinton and we have exhausted every avenue we’ve been able to do. The current response from DfI is that this test pilot has gone up in Clady. and everybody has to wait to see what happens there before other villages can take any more enforcement. Residents in Clady as well as Eglinton have been tortured by HGVs. Similar stories of wing mirrors on cars, the roads being torn up and HGVs having to go up on the kerbs to get around bends for shortcuts.”

Ald. McCready said: “Listening to a lot of residents from Eglinton, including the schools, it’s a very dangerous situation... I do believe we can learn the lessons in the processes that are currently going through but are long overdue from Clady.”