Holiday-goer left with £1000 bill after damaging car on Marlow Bridge

The bollards on the bridge were installed to discourage heavy HGVs from crossing the Grade I listed infrastructure and had further width restrictions mounted onto them in 2021.

However, this frustrated several residents and has now infuriated a holiday-goer who was visiting the area with his wife.

While leaving Marlow to go back to The Olde Bell hotel down the road, John Portman heard a “crumbling" sound whilst manoeuvring his car through the bollards.

This has left his car, which he bought only two weeks ago, with damage on three of his panels and a cost of £1105.20 to fix.

He said: “I thought it was pretty close, I have driven cars all my life and never had a scratch.

“You don’t normally drive in between daggers sticking out each side of your car only a few millimeters wide.

“I was just caught out, utterly caught out.

“I did take care obviously, I knew it was dodgy and went through slowly but inaccurate is inaccurate.

“A great big sign surely with no HGVs, I’ve it seen in other places, we have some round here, would do the job without tearing everybody’s car to bits.”

Earlier this year, a petition was launched to remove the cameras saying that "hundreds of motorists" have damaged their vehicles whilst driving through the bollards.

Since then, Buckinghamshire Council installed a camera on the bridge as part of a trial to monitor how many people in heavy cars, vans and lorries were trying to get across it.

It found that on average, 97 vehicles every day were breaking the weight restriction rules.

However, the council had to stop the trial because enforcement of structural weight limits by local authorities in this way is prohibited.

The rules state that the council can only enforce environmental weight limits, which can only be used on routes unsuitable for HGVs and where there is a better and equally convenient alternative.

The council is now progressing with applying to the Department for Transport for permission to go ahead with other schemes to monitor the bridge.

There have been a number of incidents over the years when overweight vehicles have attempted to cross the historic bridge.

In November 2021, a local resident stood in front of a lorry to stop it from crossing the bridge with police officers making the driver turn around.

In 2016, the bridge was forced to shut as it saw “overstressing on key structural parts” when an HGV driver from a European haulage company vastly exceeded the three-tonne weight limit in his 37-tonne lorry, blowing a tyre and getting stuck.

Two months later another disaster was barely averted when an overweight van attempted to cross it five minutes after it was officially reopened following extensive inspections.

Then, in 2017, one lorry managed to get through its width restrictions before being flagged down; while on a separate occasion a P&O Ferrymasters wagon blew its tyres while attempting to cross the weight-restricted bridge.

A Bensons for Beds lorry also exceeded the bridge weight limit in 2019.