Contingency plans are set to be put in place for Armistice Day at a Suffolk village whose war memorial was badly damaged when a police car crashed into the structure.

A meeting is being held on Monday at the Baptist Church, in Norton, near Bury St Edmunds, to discuss the measures after the Suffolk Constabulary vehicle came off the road when it was responding to a call and had its blue lights flashing.

The car was overtaking vehicles when it was involved in a collision with a Mini and hit the memorial outside The Dog pub, in Ixworth Road, at about 1.10pm on Friday.

The memorial, which was given a £2,000 facelift last year, had four of its surrounding bollards smashed and other significant damage caused.

Kirsten Fullam, the vice chairman of the parish council which maintains the memorial, said they were unaware of the total cost of the damage.

She said today: “We will aim to put in place contigency plans for the Armistice service on November 11 for the villagers and veterans from the war. We are hoping to put something temporary in place if needed and we will be hoping to get it back and restore it back to its former glory.

“But accidents do happen and we do have a lot of traffic come through the village off the A14 and we do what we can to monitor the traffic.

“From Monday we hope to have a future plan for the memorial and get it back as quickly as possible.

“The incident caused quite a lot of delay locally and it was quite unexpected but the one nice thing about Norton is it’s a good community.

“The crash could have been a lot worse as it could have gone into cars in the nearby pub and we are relieved that nobody was badly injured.”

The woman driving the Mini Clubman sustained a wrist injury whilst both officers in the car suffered minor bruising.

More police cars later arrived at the scene to direct traffic.

One eyewitness said: “It could have been a lot, lot worse - had there been anyone walking on the side of the road or pulling out of the pub junction, they would have been right in the path of the police car.”

According to another eyewitness the police car struck the memorial, causing debris to spray cars in the pub car park.

Police said some minor damage was done to a stationary Audi A6.

Officers and ambulance staff attended the scene and recovery vehicles to remove the damaged cars were called in.

Suffolk Constabulary have said that an investigation into the collision will now take place.

Anyone who witnessed the road traffic collision should contact Suffolk police on 101, quoting CAD 164 of today, Friday, September 28.