People living in Walton have told how stranded trucks are breaking their fences and smashing walls after following sat-navs but then realising they can not go across the village's Bailey bridge.

A group of concerned neighbours who live in South Derbyshire village say heavy vehicles are travelling down Station Lane as sat-navs direct them and attempting to cross the Bailey bridge, but when they realise they can't, they struggle to turn around.

There is a width restriction of seven-and-half feet and a three-tonne weight limit for the bridge which means large trucks cannot use it. It means lorries are having to turn around, normally on private driveways, which causes damage, they say.

They are calling for restrictions and signs at the entrance to the village banning larger trucks.

Chris Beebee, 61, lives on Station Road and says he has had his fence posts ripped out of the ground on multiple occasions by turning lorries and that his neighbours have had whole walls torn down.

Mr Beebee said: “Two of my neighbours have had their wall ripped down, I’ve had my fence post taken down. We are having to police this ourselves to stop the vehicles from using personal drives and causing the damage.

“They’re following sat-navs blindly and ignoring the current signage that is there, warning them 240 yards down the road.

“Some ignore it because they think if they can get over the bridge, and they’re going. So if we can get a prohibitive sign to stop entry of vehicles of more than three tonnes, that might be enforced more greatly because police can take action then.”

Mr Beebee was speaking at the quarterly Linton area forum meeting and was told by Derbyshire county councillor Pat Murray, whose division includes Walton, that he would now look into the problems.

Councillor Murray said he was going to sit down with the residents from the village who were concerned and being most effected by the issue and sort out a plan moving forward.

He said: “As the county councillor, I will make contact with you and we can set up a meeting to see exactly what we can do. I can then take it up with the highways up at county hall.

“There’s so many signs on these small roads that you can’t read them all as a driver, what we need to do is possibly look at that and look at where the most appropriate place is to warn these drivers.”

The controversy of the Bailey bridge

The Bailey bridge itself is not a structure to shy away from controversy, having been intended to be and will one day be for pedestrians only.

Plans to build a bypass in Walton continue to be delayed, a process that would see the Bailey bridge closed off to cars and traffic and a new bridge built.

These plans were initially proposed more than five years ago as part of a deal to build 2,200 new homes in Drakelow, by Drakelow Developments Ltd which agreed to fund the bypass.

Construction of this bypass would bring about the end of decades of frustration for villagers and motorists who used the Bailey bridge to travel between Burton and Swadlincote.

An original bridge was built in 1834, which lasted more than one hundred years before needing to be replaced by a temporary version - the Bailey bridge. Army Royal Engineers erected this on top of the old bridge in 1947, removing part of it to allow for a support to be built on the Staffordshire bank of the river.

Flood damage had meant the engineers were called in to install the Bailey bridge after the severe winter of 1947. The bridge was once again replaced in 1974 with a modern version but still a temporary Bailey bridge structure.

Roughly 8,000 vehicles, including 300 lorries will travel through the village and surrounding rural roads and parts of Burton and Stapenhill every day. Eventually, a multi-lane road will be built to connect the A38 and Walton Road, running over the River Trent.