A Moray farmer was angered when a driver ended up abandoning a car in his field, after damaging a vital bridge needed to gain access to his farm.
George Elder owns the Barleymill farm beside Brodie, and was shocked to discover an empty Vauxhall Astra in his field on Saturday morning with the culprit nowhere to be seen.
Upon further investigation Mr Elder found that the bridge over the Muckle Burn he uses daily to go back and forth to his farm had been knocked and sustained substantial damage.
The old stone structure is now not safe enough for bigger vehicles to use, and Mr Elder believes that this will badly affect his business.
He said: “The damaged bridge will really strangle us as half my field is across the burn.
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“We are due fertiliser and there is no way we can get the arctic vehicles across the bridge so we will need to transport it in smaller trucks which is a lot of hassle and could cost us more money.
“Access to the farm has became really restricted and hopefully the bridge is fixed by harvest, which is August and September as then we need proper access to the farm.”
The bridge leads from the A96 to Brodie Castle and is owned by Moray Council. The local authority sent out an engineer yesterday morning to assess the damage.
Mr Elder hopes the bridge is fixed as soon as possible and whoever abandoned the car is found.
He said: “The bridge is now really unsafe and I have walked over it and it feels like it is about to fall down.
“I found the car in my field at 8am on Saturday morning and realised that someone had thrashed their car ending up in the field and then legged it.”
A police spokeswoman revealed that a man had been charged in connection with the incident.
She said: “A one vehicle road traffic collision was reported to the police at about 1.40am on Saturday, 13 October, on A96 at Brodie.
“No one was within car and a 34-year-old man subsequently charged in relation to road traffic offences including failing to stop and report.”