SELBORNE Traffic Action Group (STAG) campaigners are branding the B3006 "accident alley" following three serious accidents on the road in the course of a week - one of them fatal.

Deeply shocked and saddened by the tragedy, STAG chairman, Bob Thompstone has stressed that while campaigners do not want to make mileage out of the mayhem, it would be remiss in the extreme not to point out that these accidents epitomise local fears.

"There is no question of us seeking to capitalise on what is a deeply distressing time for all concerned, but the accidents do highlight what we have been trying to get across to the authorities.

"I just hope and pray that if anything good can come out of such an awful tragedy, it might help to persuade the powers that be that we really do have safety problems here, and that it is the whole of the B3006 which concerns us, not just the stretch through the village," he said.

A letter from Selborne resident Susie Storey has sought to stress similar concerns.

It was Mrs Storey who went to the rescue of a woman trapped in her car in the centre of the village at lunchtime on Saturday. The car had apparently been in collision with an Army vehicle.

According to Mrs Storey there was a 20 minute delay before the fire brigade arrived to free the woman and a further ten minutes before the ambulance turned up on the scene.

An earlier accident at Stairs Hill, Empshott, on Friday last week had resulted in the death of a Petersfield nurse, while a third accident was reported to have taken place to the north of Selborne, on the Alton stretch of the B3006, on the previous Wednesday.

The incidents have reaffirmed the views of both Mr Thompstone and Mrs Storey that something should be done about "the serious traffic problem that exists in Selborne".