A public meeting about the future of a controversial lorry park in Melksham will be held on Monday.

Town councillor Jon Hubbard, who has led a campaign to have the lorry park in King Street Car Park moved, is urging all residents affected by the issue to attend and have their voices heard.

People living in Spa Court say they have had their lives blighted by lorries parking up behind their homes, with problems including engine noise during the night, diesel and petrol fumes seeping into the homes and the smell of urine as drivers sometime use the area as a toilet, due to a lack of proper facilities.

The meeting at Melksham Town Hall at 7pm will give residents the chance to take part in a consultation being carried out by Wiltshire Council, which has commissioned a report into options for the lorry park, including the possibility of moving it, keeping it as it is or closing it.

Mary Howard, who lives in Spa Court, said she felt positive that the meeting was taking place, but did not want to second guess the outcome.

She said: “I am glad it’s happening and people are being invited along because one wants to try and get the matter sorted, but we will just see what happens, that’s all we can really do at this point.

“I have got some leaflets about the meeting that were given to me and I am going to go and hand them out.”

Edna Thomson, 82, also of Spa Court, said things had quietened down recently with the number of lorries using the park reducing, but she felt this may have been because of the recent bad weather.

She said it remained a long term problem which needed sorting out.

“The bad weather must have made an awful difference because I haven’t been woken up in the night lately,” she said. “But if nothing is done now, then the problem will just come back again and it’s not right that there are lorries parking there overnight as there are no proper toilet facilities.

“If nothing is done about it now it will just happen again and then we will have to go all through this struggle all over again.”