Wiltshire roads could soon have more lorries travelling along them after councillors in Bath pushed ahead with plans to ban the vehicles from the city centre.

Plans are afoot to prevent heavy goods vehicles from using the world heritage city as a route from the M4 to the south, by banning vehicles weighing any more than 18 tonnes from using the A36 over Cleveland Bridge.

Wiltshire campaigners fear the move will mean more HGVs piling on to the A350, which they say is already heavily congested in places such as Beanacre, near Trowbridge and Westbury.

The decision to implement a trial of the ban, for up to 18 months, was expected to be approved today (Friday) by Bath and North East Somerset Council’s cabinet member for transport, Cllr Roger Symonds.

A number of groups will be asked for their views, including Wiltshire Council, the police, the Highway Agency, the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association.

But the way the move has been handled to date has raised the eyebrows of highway officers at Wiltshire Council, who resorted to sending a Freedom of Information request in order to see the neighbouring council’s plan after they had stalled in providing it.

Cllr Symonds, who is able to make the decision on the £34,000 project alone, said: “All information requested by Wiltshire Council in relation to the impact of traffic flows on their roads has been provided to them.

“Officers have also written to us with questions about the proposal that will be answered.

“We are listening to the views of all organisations and the public – nothing is yet set in stone.”

Wiltshire councillor Dick Tonge, cabinet member for transport, said: “We will obviously be taking part in the consultation but we still need to get more information from them.

“We would like to have a friendly relationship with them but it can be difficult at times.”

An informal consultation will end in September with a view to completing the design of the scheme by November. There would then be a further six months of formal consultation and the pilot scheme could finally be introduced in February 2012 and be reviewed in 2013.

Councillors in Bath had initially argued that only two per cent of affected lorries would resort to using Wiltshire roads, a claim that has since been disputed.

Jenny Raggett, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “This will be unacceptable to Wiltshire but I think they are just going to do it anyway.

“It will mean we will see many more lorries on Wiltshire roads. When the A36 was cut off at Limpley Stoke that was exactly what happened and the same will happen again if this goes ahead.”

South West Wiltshire MP Andrew Murrison said: “I appreciate Bath’s problem but it must find another way of relieving its congestion than shunting its traffic up the A350.”