News | M20
Living in the shadowof OpBrockis ‘horrendous’
HOUSEHOLDERS say they have been living under siege as road bosses prepare theM20 for Brexit. Families living in the shadowof
the motorway in Hollingbourne have to put upwith late-night en- gineering and floodlights as Britain gears up for a break with Europe. The embankment above them
carries over 12,000 HGVs a day. But, with plans to widen the car- riageway by threemetres in their direction, residents say life along Ashford Road is “horrendous”. Nikki Clover, who lives oppo-
site the Park Gate, said: “There’s no screening between us and the motorway.We’ve hadHGV tyres roll down the bank into our gar- dens. The noise is ridiculous – there’s nothing to muffle the sound. “It has been horrendous. We
don’t knowwhat to expect next.” Neighbour, Ray Lancaster says
Ray Lancaster, stands in his garden as the lorries thunder past on the M20, which is to be widened to bring it threemetres closer to his house
he has to deal with deafening road noise and human effluent in plastic bottles – launched by lorry drivers - tumbling down into his garden. He told Downs Mail: “My
house has been here since 1650 – but if we wanted to build it now, we wouldn’t get permission be- cause the noise levels are so high. “We get all sorts of rubbish rolling down the bank. There is
no screen to stop the sound, no safety or security barrier. “If they’re parking lorries up
there to deal with Brexit delays, there will be no security, a lot more rubbish, people using the land as a toilet, pollution from parked HGVs with their engines idling... And we’ve had no con- sultationwhatever.” Highways England was ap- proached for a comment.
downsmail.co.uk Barrier ‘can’t
stopatruck’ PARISH councillor Catherine O’Meara, who also lives in Hollingbourne’s “forgotten com- munity” between the A20 and M20, said a highways engineer has visited her property to gauge the impact on residents. She said: “My paddock is just a
few metres from the carriage- way. There is no fencing on that stretch, and even further along, there’s only a metal barrier that could stop a car, but not a lorry. "We have to endure bags of
human waste, thrown out by passing lorry drivers, hanging from our trees. We’ve even had the curtain side of a lorry blow down here. All this debris, espe- cially the tyres, pick up momen- tum as they come down the slope. It's a wonder nobody has been hurt. “Nowthe nightworks are upon
us, with the installation ofmetal carriageway barriers, which means I'll have that outside my back window, and the motor- way’s diverted traffic outside the front of the house.”
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Maidstone East March 2019
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