SHOPKEEPERS are calling for large lorries to be banned from Top Cross in Ledbury after another landmark building was hit.

A lorry attempting to turn from Gloucester Road into Worcester Road reversed and hit Bride Of Ledbury, which occupies a grade II-listed building on stilts.

The sign was knocked from the wall and swung down on one chain over the path.

Luckily, no one was walking along the pavement when the the sign, a supporting arm and plaster came down.

Shop owner Alison Taylor said: "My changing room is up the stairs and if anyone had been in there at the time they would have seen the rear of an articulated lorry coming right for them."

Builders were called in to inspect the half-timbered building, and said it was not badly damaged.

There was a similar incident last summer when scaffolding in Worcester Road was hit by lorry negotiating the junction during the restoration of Ledbury Books and Maps.

Councillor Peter Watts, who represents Ledbury, said: "Top Cross is an official lorry route so we need to get the Government to change it."

He is calling for the Ledbury bypass to be finished so lorries can go round the town.

Herefordshire Council wants to finish the northern stretch of the bypass by 2011, according to its own blueprint for development, taking it under the railway viaduct to Bromyard Road.

But extending the bypass to Worcester Road, which could divert all heavy traffic from Top Cross, is not the current development plan.

Regarding the call to ban lorries from Top Cross, highways officer Bruce Evans said: "Top Cross is a difficult junction but that location is quite a problem. Just look at the map.

"For lorries coming from Malvern, for instance, we would need to make a diversion to the M50 motorway."