VIDEO Residents and shoppers in a Suffolk town were today counting their blessings after an astonishing escape when two tons of scaffolding came crashing to the ground.

RESIDENTS and shoppers in a Suffolk town were today counting their blessings after an astonishing escape when two tons of scaffolding came crashing to the ground.

Two cars parked in Needham Market high street were wrecked - but no one was hurt when the steel fell down in high winds.

Part of the high street was closed - the scaffolding came down just before noon in high winds.

It had been erected by TH Moss and Sons of Wherstead Road Ipswich to allow workers to clean the outside of a house.

A green Honda Civic and a red Peugeot 306 were crushed beneath the scaffolding which was left hanging over the road.

Painter Peter Brown was working on the outside of a nearby house when the scaffolding came down.

“It has been very windy down here,” he said.

“How it didn't hit a car coming the other way is amazing, it was very fortunate.

“The wind was very strong, it was blowing things all over the road. It's very lucky it happened the way it did, it could have been so much worse, it could have caught a car coming the other way or someone could have been walking underneath it.”

Katie Warren was dressing a window at Dawn's Fashions, just a few doors away from the incident when the scaffolding came down.

“I just heard a massive crash,” she said.

“The wind caught it and it fell into the road, it was very windy. It sounded like dropping hundreds of pots and pans on the floor.”

Health and Safety inspectors were called to the scene and workers from TH Moss and Sons waited at the scene for them to arrive.

Paul Moss, a director of the company said: "We have never had this kind of accident happen before.

"This is the first time something like this has happened.”