A FATHER claims he and his three-year-old daughter had a lucky escape when an articulated lorry smashed into their property - for the third time in six months.

Now Brian Samson, 45, is campaigning for bollards to be put in the middle of Sudell Road outside his house to stop his family being at risk walking along their own garden path.

On Monday at 9am, Brian took three-year-old Bryony out to playschool.

Moments later, the lorry crashed into the area where they had stood and caused £500 damage to his garden wall.

The driver left without contacting the Samson family.

Brian said lorries use the pavement as a matter of course when turning the tight corner from Sudell Road on to Ratcliffe Street, or vice-versa.

He added that it only took a slight misjudgment to smash in to his property.

In the past six months, an articulatd lorry dented his car door and ripped off the trim, then another crumpled the vehicle's offside wing.

Sudell ward councillor Eileen Entwistle said the crash could have been tragic and has arranged for Blackburn with Darwen Council traffic officers to visit Brian this week to seek a solution.

Brian, who also lives at the house with wife Linda and 20-month-old daughter Grace, said the only way would be to put bollards in the middle of the road so the lorries were unable to drive through.

"I hope the council comes up with a solution before someone is seriously injured or killed," said Brian, who is a trained psychiatric nurse.

"I came home from taking my daughter, to find my wife looking distressed.

Then I saw my collapsed wall all over the pavement and was relieved everyone was OK.

"If we had set off a couple of minutes later, my daughter could have been underneath the rubble."

Coun Entwistle said: "This is not the first time it has happened.

"This sort of thing is a problem nationwide and it's very dangerous.

"Many vehicles are now too long for the terrace streets we have.

"It has made a mess of his wall so it could have potentially been very tragic.

"If anyone had been on his garden path they could have been killed."