Councillors criticise police over Bexhill road’s weight limit enforcement

On Monday (April 28), Cllr Claire Dowling, East Sussex County Council’s lead member for transport and environment, considered a petition calling for a range of measures intended to stop Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) and other large vehicles from travelling through High Street in Bexhill’s old town.

While the road already has a 7.5-tonne weight limit, petitioners say this restriction is being routinely breached by large vehicles and is resulting in damage to historic listed buildings.

Cllr Dowling said: “I am very sorry that the police are not undertaking their statutory duty, which is to enforce the weight restriction because that is something they are quite capable of and they should be doing.

“I am aware that we have issues elsewhere, but there is no excuse and they should be doing it.”

Similar concerns were voiced by Bexhill East councillor Charles Clark (Ind), who said: “I had a meeting with Sussex Police … but they are not prepared to take any action. It is unfortunate that we haven’t got a system where we can give statutory fines to companies who abuse weight limits. That would probably be great, but that system is not in place at the moment.”

The LDRS approached Sussex Police for comment but did not receive a reply by time of publication.

The petition called on the county council to take alternative measures to deter HGVs from using the road. This included calls to change the road’s layout, making it narrower so wider vehicles would be unable to use it.

Following a recommendation from officers, Cllr Dowling agreed the council would ‘fully assess’ the potential for such a scheme.

While they had recommended this approach, officers had also warned that there were several challenges and limitations which could prevent such a scheme from moving ahead. These challenges include a need to ensure emergency service vehicles and “legitimate” HGV deliveries are still able to access the route.

These requirements mean “a physical width restriction is likely to have minimal effect on ‘through’ HGV traffic using the High Street”, officers had said in their report.

The petition, which has gathered more than 500 signatures, also called on the council to redirect bus routes away from the area.

Officers said any redirection of bus routes would be undesirable as it “would have a substantial impact on passengers gaining access to Bexhill Hospital”.

Officers said four major bus routes currently pass through High Street and that it would not be possible to operate these routes with buses weighing less than 7.5-tonnes as they would not have the seating capacity to cater for passenger demand on these routes.

The report also noted how concerns around enforcement of the weight limit had been passed on to Sussex Police.