'HGV friendly' sat-nav maps offer hope to villages

Rural villages were hoping they had seen the last of lorries stuck down narrow lanes after a council announced today it was providing "HGV friendly" maps for satellite navigation systems.

Small villages have long had to put up with HGVs careering through and ending up wedged in country lanes after following sat-nav instructions.

Somerset County Council is now providing maps specifically for HGVs and freight vehicles to reduce the amount of heavy traffic being directed through the county's rural roads.

The problem has even led to villagers in Wedmore asking to be wiped off the map following a sharp increase in traffic since the sat-nav boom.

Charlcombe, near Bath, has also seen coaches and trucks get stuck in its lanes, including a 44-tonne lorry from Lithuania which was wedged for four days last September.

Residents of Barrow Gurney once accused sat-nav manufacturers of turning their village into a car park in less than a year, with more than 10,000 vehicles a day using it as a rat run to Bristol airport.

Somerset County Council, and Suffolk County Council, are piloting the "truck friendly" sat-navs which produce County and Regional Freight Maps which will offer preferred HGV routes and pinpoint locations of height and weight restricted bridges.

The data will soon be available for hauliers to upload to their sat-navs and the council has met with Department for Transport officials in Westminster to discuss the project.

Councillor Tony Shire, Somerset's portfolio holder for highways, said:
"For some time now we have been working to ensure that HGVs are using the most appropriate routes and not being inadvertently directed onto unsuitable roads or under height restricted bridges.

"I am delighted that our work to address this issue has been highlighted by the Department for Transport, and we look forward to working with Suffolk to further develop methodologies to get critical information regarding the highway infrastructure onto sat-nav systems in the future."

But the council said that they would not be able to leave villages off the maps because the emergency services are also reliant on them.

Mal Johnson, vice-chairman of Wedmore Parish Council said: "Sat-navs do not offer any information to lorry drivers, who just punch in the shortest route, that there are narrow roads or areas without pavements in villages.

"We have had damage to buildings, lorries getting stuck and it has brought general chaos to Wedmore.

"We have wanted to see for a long time information for drivers so that they can make their own judgment, so we welcome this.

"But it will take some time to have an effect and in the short term we have come up with solutions like introducing a one way system for lorries around the village and working with the local quarries to come up with a code of conduct."