A campaigner said she feels Eye has been abandoned by the county council after it lifted a restriction on HGVs going through the town.
Tunie Brandon said the decision could have far-reaching consequences, including preventing the town from attracting new business, while potentially putting people off from moving to the area.
The decision to introduce a traffic regulation order looked to have brought an end to instances of HGVs mounting pavements, colliding with properties and striking vehicles, following years of campaigning.
But after studying the results of the trial, Suffolk County Council said it would be lifting the ban over the coming weeks, due to the riple-effect on nearby towns and villages, which have criticised the scheme.
The likes of Debenham, Hoxne and Stradbroke have all reported a significant increase in HGV traffic – and petitioned the county council to put an end the pilot scheme, which had been due to run for another six months.
Mrs Brandon, who is a town councillor and a founding member of a campaign group, criticised the county council for using percentages instead of actual numbers to make their case look more convincing.
“When you read Debenham’s figures, it had a 46 per cent increase in HGVs, but that only works out to 27 extra HGV movements over five days,” she said. “With the ban in effect, we still had 189 HGVs in Magdalen Street over the same period.
“This feels like we have been abandoned. All we want is for lorries to use the preferred routes, which were published by Suffolk Highways and the county council.
“This will just bring more traffic jams and a return to lorries mounting pavements, which will be dangerous and scary for residents.
“It will not help us sell Eye to businesses and people wanting to move here – it could kill us.”
The county council said one of the factors in its decision was the overwhelmingly negative response to the trial outside the restricted area, which saw 73 per cent of survey respondents saying it had made the situation in their community worse.
Richard Smith, cabinet member for economic development, skills, transport strategy and waste, said: “The restrictions only moved the problem to other communities, which is not acceptable.
“I understand that this is an important and upsetting issue for many in Eye, but solving this type of problem in a rural county with few good quality routes is far from easy. We will continue to look at ways to mitigate the heavy traffic.”
