FED-UP villagers have launched a petition to stop lorry drivers using their streets as a rat run.

HGVs have been banned from Flockton village, but people living in nearby Emley claim the ban has diverted 40-tonne lorries on to the streets of their village as they travel between the M1 and Huddersfield.

Residents are concerned that several lorries every day are trundling through the cramped village centre and thecountry lanes leading from the A636 road, which links with the Bretton roundabout on the way to the motorway junction.

Now they have launched a petition with 200 signatures and want to impose a 10-tonne limit on vehicles passing through their village, except for those delivering to farms and Emley Business Park.

The petition will be handed to members of Kirklees Council tomorrow and to the Denby Dale, Kirkburton and Mirfield Area Committee at their meeting on March 28.

Colin Hadfield, who started the petition, said: “There are four to five miles of road through the village and less than half a mile has a pavement.

“We’ve got lorries blocking the roads up.

“Every road junction is blind on one side or the other.

“It’s a terrible place for them to come through.

Mr Hadfield, a retired business consultant, 73, of Wentworth Drive, added: “Places like Emley and Emley Moor are quite small villages, but are starting to suffer a rise in the numbers of HGVs due to restrictions already imposed on the parallel roads through Flockton and Skelmanthorpe.

“We have several 40-tonners a day on totally unsuitable roads to take them and road, vehicle and wall damage is on the increase.

“We acknowledge that a few, perhaps three a week, do need access for delivery to farms and the business park.

“Our previous experience of Kirklees Highways is that they will do anything to avoid making our villagers safer and even the impending threat by the EU to raise the HGV weight limit to 60 tonnes will make no difference.”

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said: “The petition will be considered by committee members.”

Since 1956 Flockton residents have demanded a road from Bar Lane, near New Hall Lane, to the A642 Wakefield Road to bypass the village.

But villagers have been told they are unlikely to receive it.