FRIGHTENED residents in an East Dorset village say it is just a matter of time before someone is seriously injured after a Wilts & Dorset bus smashed into a garden wall.

Student Elizabeth Selway, 22, from Merley Lane, was woken up when she heard a loud crash outside her home at around 8am on Wednesday.

She rushed outside with her family and other worried residents to discover the Wimborne Flyer, a single-decker Wilts & Dorset bus, had demolished part of her home's front garden wall as it attempted to pass another bus in the narrow road.

Miss Selway insisted it is not the first time the buses, which caused controversy when they were re-routed through Merley Lane in a major shake up in June, have had a near scrape.

But Wilts & Dorset has revealed it plans to scrap the new route from October 29 and revert the buses to their old route through Merley Gardens.

"There was debris everywhere, bricks all over the place and glass and bits of plastic from the damaged bus, which stopped about 50 metres down the road," she explained.

"The new buses are just too wide. It is not the first time we have had an incident. Last week a bus damaged a road sign and we must have found three bus wing mirrors lying in the road in the past six months."

Marketing manager at Wilts & Dorset Chris Harris admitted the company has received numerous complaints and a petition from customers in Merley who have struggled to reach bus stops along the new route.

But he explained that the decision to revert to the old route was just part of the normal process of making sure what the company offers is in line with what customers want.

"We will be conducting an internal enquiry to find out what happened," he said. "Obviously we apologise for any inconvenience, but the important thing is no one was hurt."