A FIFTY-foot articulated lorry jack-knifed on a tight bend in Stroud on Friday morning - blocking the road and inconveniencing motorists and shoppers for nearly an hour.

The 44-tonne juggernaut, which made a wrong turn just before 9am while travelling on the A46 through Stroud towards Thrupp, turned into Gloucester Street but was too large to negotiate the sharp corner into Lansdown at the top of the road.

The 36-year-old driver, who had travelled from Cheshire and preferred not to be named, said the problem arose as two cars with disabled badges had parked on double yellow lines in Lansdown.

"If large vehicles are allowed to come up here there should be no parking there at all," he said, adding that there are no weight restriction signs at the bottom of one-way road, Gloucester Street.

Once the obstructing cars had moved, a crowd of around 50 watched as the driver shunted round the trailer, which had almost completely blocked the road.

Coincidentally, a bollard outside the Greyhound pub, which is situated on the tight bend, was knocked out of the ground by another motorist earlier that morning.

One bystander, postman David White, 61, from Stroud's Bisley Old Road, said: "There are yellow lines but people just park there anyway."

He added that he had witnessed similar problems in other parts of town, such as in George Street.

Spokesman for Gloucestershire County Council's highways department said: "In this instance, the combination of disabled parking possibly not anticipating the need to maintain access for articulated lorries and a route error on the part of the lorry driver unfortunately caused some congestion in the area."