Cricklade residents who say their lives are being made a misery by heavy lorries using the town as a rat-run are demanding action.

People from Cricklade, Ashton Keynes and Leigh packed out the town hall for a public meeting with North Swindon MP Michael Wills to discuss ways of tackling the problem.

The number of trucks in Cricklade High Street, the B4696 at Ashton Keynes and the B4040 at Leigh has been a matter of hot debate for years.

Cricklade town council has received complaints about lorries driving through the narrow streets which people say poses a threat to pedestrians and creates noise and pollution.

Residents have also complained about the anti-social hours some haulage companies keep, saying they are being kept awake at night.

Mr Wills told the crowd he sympathised with their frustrations and said he would write again to haulage companies in the area to try to put pressure on them to ask their drivers not to drive through Cricklade but to use the A419 and M4 as alternative routes.

A survey by Wiltshire County Council last year at nine sites in the Cricklade and Ashton Keynes area revealed 111 vehicles in five hours left the A419 Cricklade junction and headed south on the B4553 through the town to West Swindon. The survey, carried out with the Cricklade, Ashton Keynes and Leigh sub-group of the Freight Quality Partnership, also showed most HGV traffic is local.