VILLAGERS battling to improve a lorry-laden country lane will protest plans to increase heavy traffic.

Radley residents have been campaigning for 30 years to make 'perilous' Thrupp Lane safer, and will voice fresh concerns at a planning meeting on Wednesday.

Vale of White Horse District Council is due to decide on Terrafirma Roadways' plans to open an industrial site off the lane - which could bring up to eight more lorries a day to the single-track road.

Radley parish councillor Priscilla Dudding said: "There are two right-angle bends, it's very narrow and it's poor quality: it's not suitable for more lorries.

"It's so sad - people commenting during consultation were saying they don't let their children go there."

Villagers are used to lorries trundling along the road due to two concrete and gravel sites already there, and have long-pushed to add another exit from Thrupp Lane to Audlett Drive.

Hopes for Thrupp Lane, which is frequently used for access to Radley Lakes, are included in the village's draft neighbourhood plan.

Mike Wilson, of Thrupp Lane Residents' Association, said: "People come to cycle all through glorious Oxfordshire and use Thrupp Lane, which is a national cycle path, not knowing it's a single track lane with right-angles and potholes. I hate to say it but there will be a terrible accident at some stage.

"It's a beautiful area and a very popular location for walking and fishing. Every day these lorries are putting people at risk.

"These are not small lorries, they are enormous great big things with trailers - imagine 26 tonne lorries with 16 tonne trailers going up and down the narrow lane. It shouldn't happen; it's wrong on every level. Unless we say "stop", this will carry on.

"In our neighbourhood plan we welcome business with a new safe access."

Friends of Radley Lakes chairman Roger Thomas, who lives in Abingdon, said: "The lane has a mixture of leisure traffic for the lakes, cyclists and industrial traffic. It's so perilous and that is why we are unhappy with these proposals.

"It's important to understand that we don't object to the industrial estate itself - it's just the traffic."

Oxfordshire County Council commented on the application: "The existing HGV traffic use of Thrupp Lane far exceeds the loading that the road was originally built to withstand.

"Any further increase in HGV use creates more opportunities for conflict and would be detrimental to the safety of cyclists."

Terrafirma Roadways declined to comment.

The district council's planning meeting commences at 6.30pm at The Beacon in Wantage.