A GRANDAD is calling for crash barriers to be installed on a motorway near him, after a car smashed into his garden.

Retired farmer Eddie Gaskell was shocked to find emergency fencing around his garden, in Rosemary Lane, Bartle, when he woke one morning last week.

He later discovered that a BMW had left the motorway, ploughed through a hedge, a fence and tore up 20 yards of turf before coming to a stand-still - at the spot where his grandchildren normally play.

The car had been towed away and the gap in the fence blocked up before Eddie even found out about the early morning accident.

Eddie has been pressing for crash barriers since the motorway opened, predicting that an accident like this would happen.

There was a similar accident in his garden in the 1970s - and Eddie doesn't want it to become third time unlucky.

He says it was just lucky his grandchildren weren't playing outside at the time.

"Judging by the damage caused I assumed it must have been a truck, not a car, " he said.

"The car had landed just where the children normally play. I dread to think what would have happened had any of them been in the back garden at the time.

"We need a crash barrier alongside the motorway to prevent something like this happening again."

His local county councillor, Bill Chadwick, is calling on Lancashire County Council to arrange for a crash barrier to be put in place.

He said: "This incident obviously caused Mr Gaskell a great deal of shock and reinforces representations made several years ago that barriers should be erected near to these homes."

Clive Naish, from the Highways Agency, which looks after the country's major road network, said: "We will be reading the police report with interest."

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