An investigation was going on yesterday after a lorry shed more than two tonnes of chicken parts on a major road, causing traffic chaos in Keighley Town Centre.

The incident happened shortly after 4pm on Tuesday, forcing police officers to close the road from the High Street roundabout to the junction with Worth Way. Firefighters also attended the scene.

The spillage occurred near South Street’s junction with Goulbourne Street, leaving a large part of the north-bound lane covered in a thick, slippery layer of chicken parts.

Fred Clarke, the landlord of the nearby King’s Head pub, said this was not the first time such a spillage had happened in the area. “We had one a couple of years ago closer to the Friendly pub – that was in the summer, so it reeked,” he said. “You’d think they’d be able to design these containers to stop it happening, wouldn’t you?”

Barkat Ali, owner of Azeem’s Restaurant, said he and his staff saw the unappetising mess a few minutes after the accident when they arrived to start work.

He said: “It’s not good for business – people who might have wanted to come down here this evening will see the road and then they just won’t want to know. We can’t even go out to do deliveries because the road is shut at both ends. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be closed.”

Ingrow resident Roy Marsden said: “It’s pretty unpleasant, but at least there’s not much of a smell – maybe because it’s so cold. I wouldn’t want to be one of the people who has to clean it all up.”

Workers were continuing to shovel the slimy waste into a metal container an hour and a half after the accident and the road remained closed to traffic. The lorry which had shed the offal was parked on the kerb next to the King’s Head - a large amount of the waste was still lodged in the gap between the container and the driver’s cab. It is undertsood Bradford Council Environmental Health Officers are investigating the incident.