Hove shopkeeper struck by bus after road danger warnings (From The Argus)

Hove shopkeeper struck by bus after road danger warnings

1:10pm Wednesday 16th May 2012 in News

A shopkeeper was struck by a bus after warning about “lethally dangerous” new loading restrictions outside his store.

Adam Campbell, who runs Gill’s Home and Garden in Western Road, Hove, said he plans to sue Green councillors Ian Davey and Pete West, who he blames for the incident.

Mr Campbell can no longer load his van legally outside his shop at peak times due to new restrictions put forward by the two Green Cabinet members and agreed by Brighton and Hove City Council earlier this year.

As he unloaded his van last Thursday from the new spot on the opposite side of Western Road, he was sent sprawling by a bus and had to be taken to Royal Sussex County Hospital with a head injury.

Mr Campbell, 49, said: “I could quite easily have died. If the bus had carried on or if my head had hit the kerb I might no longer be here.

“I had £6,000 of stock in the van which I couldn’t leave in there so I had to unload it. As I stepped between two stationary buses one suddenly pulled out and sent me flying along with my box of glassware.

“I saw it still coming towards me and was sure I was about to be run over. I hurt my head, neck and back and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance where I spent seven hours strapped to a back board.

“It’s my third incident with a bus this week. These new restrictions just don’t take public safety into account.”

In December Mr Campbell was so incensed by the plans that he stripped down to a lime-green “mankini” and threatened to form a human chain across Western Road if the council did not scrap them.

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “We’re sorry to hear that anyone has been hit by a bus. The council proposed a loading ban along Western Road to combat indiscriminate parking which has been causing considerable disruption to bus services.

“It is one of the most congested roads in the city and parked cars add to this and affect other road users such as cyclists, vehicle drivers and pedestrians who have to negotiate around them.”

Roger French, managing director of Brighton and Hove Buses, said: “We are co-operating with the police investigation into the incident on Thursday morning when it is alleged a bus hit a pedestrian.”