CAMELSDALE residents have joined the campaign against plans to set up a boarding school for London inner-city children on the former St Cuthman's School site, in Stedham.

The Durand Academy, in Stockwell, London, wants to open a weekly boarding school there for 600 pupils, aged 13 to 18, and it proposes to bus the students to Stedham at the start and end of each week.

The preferred route for the 58-mile twice-weekly fleet of buses is via Liphook, Lynchmere, Camelsdale and Fernhurst.

Camelsdale residents have protested the local roads are too narrow to take the increase in heavy traffic, and have appealed to anyone who feels the same to sign an online petition calling for the plan to be refused.

The protest petition will be presented to South Downs National Park Authority planning committee chairman Peter Shaxson.

More than 1,300 objectors have signed the petition, which is mainly opposed to the development on the grounds it would blight the national park.

For full story, see this week's Haslemere Herald.