Riled residents have set up an all-night road block to stop HGVs thundering through their village.

The action comes after days of disruption caused by the A2 diversion at Barham.

Volunteers are manning a makeshift checkpoint at Valley Road to prevent lorries exceeding the 7.5tonne limit from getting stuck at its junction with The Street and Church Lane.

In the first two nights of the closures at least five trucks and one coach became stuck in the conservation area, with one listed house being hit.

Residents have been donning hi-vis jackets and taking two-hour sentry duty shifts from 8pm to 4am while the works continue.

Volunteer Liz Leyland says most of the village has been disturbed by the diversion.

“It’s just a nightmare,” she said. “The A2 has come through the village.

“Lorries and coaches been thundering through and everyone in the village has said they’ve heard them and that it’s been really noisy all night. They’ve knocked the guttering off houses. Another had the tiles taken off it and its wall bashed.”

The eastbound carriageway of the A2 between Coldharbour Lane and the Barham Interchange was sealed off last week.

'All we can do is raise our voices and tell Highways England what chaos it is causing' - Cllr Mike Sole

A lengthy diversion is in place, directing traffic past Harbledown, through Canterbury, onto the Thanet Way and down past Sandwich to rejoin the A2 at Guston. But scores of trucks have been treating Bridge and Barham as a rat-run instead.

There will be further overnight closures between Barham Interchange and Coxhill Road before the Highways England work is scheduled to end on July 19.

“It’s pathetic,” Ms Leyland added. “I feel for the drivers because they’ve been told to go on a 45-minute diversion – and they’re just not going to do it.

“We’re committed to doing this for as long as it takes.”

Canterbury City Council has written to Highways England to establish how long Barham will be affected and to ask for extra diversion signs.

Nailbourne councillor Mike Sole says the roadworks have “made everyone’s lives hell”.

He added: “All we can do is raise our voices and tell Highways England what chaos it is causing and hope they can get things moving a bit quicker. Five weeks is an absolute nightmare.”

Highways England says additional signs telling drivers not to cut through villages will be erected. A spokesman said the official diversion route is “clearly signed” and “suitable” for the volume of traffic.

He added: “We encourage all drivers affected by the closure to use this route and not to rat run through local villages.”

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