The newly installed rising bollard at the entrance to Falmouth’s main street is "back up to its old mischief" after it caught the rear of a van passing over it.
The van belonging to the company TruCru TruStage was caught as it tried to enter Market Street after 11am this morning.
The van is thought to have been removing equipment used for this weekend’s sea shanty festival stages.
Eyewitnesses said the van was lifted after the driver had input the code and the bollard had sunk down, however it came up before the driver was able to get fully across.
The van was eventually able to be lifted off the bollard. It is not known yet what damage was caused to the van and if any was caused to the bollard
Cllr David Saunby told the Packet that this shouldn’t have happened as the bollard should be fitted with a sensor to stop it if it senses a vehicle above. However, it did not appear to have worked.
He said, as he understood it through what he'd been told at the scene, the driver had to get out of his cab to put in the code because the keypad was too low. By the time he’d climbed back into his cab, put his seatbelt on and started moving forward, he’d run out of time and the bollard started moving up.
“The sensor is supposed to stop anything like this happening,” said Cllr Saunby “but obviously it didn’t work.
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“The keypad is too low for van and lorry drivers, and he had to jump out of the cab. By the time he got back in the cab he’s run out of time. The sensor should have stopped it rising anyway. The bollard’s back up to its old mischief.
The new bollard was installed last week after new street furniture had been installed, to prevent access to the centre of town which is effectively pedestrianised between 11am and 4 pm daily, with exceptions for buses, emergency vehicles, and some residents
The bollard was formerly at the entrance of Church Street between the Grapes pub and Seasalt. It was notorious for catching vehicles and drivers out and was not thought to be effective as drivers were able to buck the system.
It was decided to move the bollard to the entrance of Market Street to prevent drivers from abusing the system.
