RESIDENTS are demanding a bypass after a woman died when a coal lorry ploughed into her home.

Catherine Bonner, 55, was in her front room in Main Road, Fairlie, in North Ayrshire, when the lorry careered into the building, demolishing part of it.

Ms Bonner's partner James McColl, 55, who was with her in the ground-floor flat at the time of the crash, was airlifted to Inverclyde Royal Hospital with minor injuries. He was discharged yesterday.

Rescue teams worked for hours to rescue Mrs Bonner, who is understood to have been buried under rubble, but she died at the scene.

The lorry driver, 54, was taken to hospital with minor injuries, and another man who was in the building at the time was unhurt.

The devastating crash has sparked anger among politicians and people living in the village.

They say a bypass should have been built so that heavy freight lorries travelling to and from Hunterston, which is a large site with power stations and a Clyde Port-run terminal, would avoid the narrow roads of the village. There are also calls for a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to be put in place immediately.

Steve Graham, 56, chairman of Fairlie Community Council, said: "It was inevitable that something like this would happen. There are a lot of coal lorries coming through the town and the road is just too narrow. We have been expecting a major accident like this for a long time.

"There was a bypass line allocated to the village involving a reroute of the A78. We have been campaigning for years to stop the amount of traffic and heavy vehicles coming through the village to get to Hunterston."

Katy Clark, MP for North Ayrshire, said: "There are serious safety risks.

"I can only hope that this tragedy is a spur to action. My view is that any industrial freight should be carried by train."

However, West Scotland MSP Kenneth Gibson said a TRO would minimise risks by monitoring the speed, movement and load of vehicles.

He said: "A bypass is the ultimate solution, but that could take 10 years.

"I'll be pursuing a TRO as the short-term solution and I'll be meeting Transport Minister Keith Brown to discuss this."

A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: "As part of standard policy, our officials will meet with the police and our operating company for the south-west unit to obtain more detailed information on this accident."

Plans to build a coal-fuelled power station on the Hunterston site were submitted to North Ayrshire Council, but withdrawn by Ayrshire Power in summer last year.

Mr Marshall said the application attracted 20,000 objections.

Campaigner Tim Cowen co-founded the group Communities Opposed to New Coal at Hunterston (CONCH), who fought for more than three years against plans for a new power station.

The 42-year-old, who lives in Largs, said: "The sad death of a resident in Fairlie is not surprising given the volumes of traffic that travel through the town."

Meanwhile, police have removed the lorry to carry out tests in a bid to establish the cause of the crash.

North Ayrshire Council is also assessing the damage to the flats.

The council is delivering letters to all 600 households in Fairlie warning them of noise disturbance as engineers work into the night to make the site safe.

The A78 remains closed this weekend but it is hoped it will re-open early next week.

It is shut between the north of Fairlie and Hunterston and diversions are in place.

A report will be sent to the procurator-fiscal.