A runaway lorry caused chaos in a busy town centre during this morning's rush hour.

It is thought the driver of the articulated low-loader may have been taken ill at the wheel in Seaside, Eastbourne.

Witnesses reported the lorry careering out of control near the Tesco supermarket at around 7.20am.

It hit three parked cars then carried on down Seaside, colliding with up to six more vehicles and a lamp post on its way.

It finally came to rest straddled across Seaside near Leaf Hall, at the junction with Cambridge Road.

Several of the parked cars it hit were also pulled across the busy road, blocking it in both directions.

No one was seriously injured in the crash but the lorry driver was taken to Eastbourne District General Hospital as a precaution.

The incident caused thousands of pounds' damage to parked cars and the lamp post and spelled chaos for rush hour commuters.

Police closed Seaside for several hours while the damaged vehicles were made safe by fire crews and debris was cleared from the road.

A police spokesman said: "We had reports of a big lorry going down Seaside, crashing into a number of vehicles.

"It caused absolute chaos at the peak of the rush hour."

The road closure caused traffic snarl-ups around the town centre, combining with traffic jams caused by roadworks at the Kings Drive roundabout and Polegate bypass work to create misery for hundreds of drivers.

Two full tanks of petrol spilled out of the damaged cars and had to be cleaned up by firefighters to stop it trickling into drains and polluting the water system.

Watch commander Steve Whittlesey, of Eastbourne fire station, said: "We had to prevent short circuits in the damaged cars which could lead to fires.

"It was lucky there was not a great deal of traffic on the road at the time of the crash.

"An hour later the road would have been full of children on their way to school.

"Fortunately most of the vehicles involved were unoccupied parked cars."