BUCKS: Chesham lorry park blaze "could have put lives at risk" (From This Is Local London)

BUCKS: Chesham lorry park blaze "could have put lives at risk"

12:10pm Friday 9th January 2009 in Latest News

The operations manager of a transport company which had seven lorries destroyed by flames last night has said peoples' lives could have been put at risk.

A fire which police say was started deliberately broke out at Howard Industrial Estate in Chilton Road, Chesham, at around 9.30pm.

The lorry park is surrounded on three sides by houses.

Bob Sidnell, the operations manager for Minor Weir and Willis – the fruit delivery company which owns the lorries – said: “My message would be to think about your actions before you do it. You could be putting lives in danger.

“All the vehicles have full tanks and we are close to a residential area so they need to think about that before they do something like this again.

“The people who did this don't think about their actions.”

Seven lorries were gutted in the blaze.

All of them were filled with fruit which was due to be delivered today – costing the company thousands.

Mr Sidnell said he had no idea who started the fire.

He said: “Maybe they get some fun out of seeing blue lights coming to deal with it.

“It's going to cost us to replace them. It's affected our deliveries today but we are putting in a recovery plan so we can be fully operational on Monday.”

He added: “We're a national company but we're part of the local community and employ local people. They could be jeopardising the livelihood of the drivers.”

Two fire crews from Amersham fire station and another from Chesham were sent to tackle the blaze shortly before 9.30pm last night.

Firefighters and police officers were still at the scene at 2.30am.

Mr Sidnell said: “I came up here about 5 o'clock this morning – it's going to be a long day for us.”

Carley Sparrow of Thames Valley Police confirmed officers were treating the incident as arson.

Any witnesses or people with information on the cause of the fire should contact Det Con Dave Brandon on 08458 505 505.