FORMER East Hampshire District Council leader Elizabeth Cartwright has called for a rethink of the Ham Barn roundabout before the opening of the A3 tunnel scheme at Hindhead. She told Liss parish councillors this week that she believed villagers would find it virtually impossible to travel towards Selborne and Alton across the A3 once the bottleneck at Hindhead disappeared and there was more traffic travelling faster along the road. It was also raised that Selborne villagers wanted to see the Ham Barn roundabout closed and the link to Liss removed. At a full meeting of Liss parish council on Monday night, Mrs Cartwright said: 'If nothing is done, it will make it almost impossible to get across the A3 from where we are. "The road will carry a lot more traffic and it will become increasingly more difficult to get onto the roundabout from our existing entrances, and it will also become more dangerous." "In my view, I don't think we can wait until Hindhead is completed and then say "Oh dear, what has happened?" Sue Halstead told the meeting the matter had recently been raised by a Selborne county councillor who believed the B3006 should be closed to the roundabout. She said: "I do think that was the view of Selborne parish councillors, but it would not necessarily have support from Liss." Mrs Halstead said the closure of the roads would mean traffic having to divert through Liss Forest and Greatham. She said she believed Liss parish councillors should ask to be involved in the Ham Barn roundabout debate from its earliest stage. "The Highways Agency proposals for a flyover were not necessarily acceptable in Liss, but there may be other solutions and they need to be carefully considered by us." Paddy Payne told fellow councillors that the same amount of traffic would use the Ham Barn roundabout after the opening of the tunnel, and he rejected claims that there would be a bottleneck caused at the Liss junction. He said there were many opinions about the effect of the tunnel opening on the roundabout, but that was wary about discussing alternatives. Mr Payne said: "It depends what the solutions being discussed are. If we are talking about a whopping great big flyover, I would think queues would be a better option. This should be discussed at rock–bottom level – which is here – because it is this village which will be affected." But Edward Crofton told the meeting: "There will be queues here when the tunnel opens because the traffic will be faster at Hindhead, and so the queues will be here." After the meeting, Mrs Cartwright told The Herald: "I am trying to get this back on the agenda. It is time we all started talking about it, because once the tunnel is opened we are going to have terrible problems in Liss." Mrs Cartwright said she was particularly concerned because the Liss 'run-ons" to the A3 were short. "The entrance from the Andlers Ash route via that roundabout are short," she said, "and at Ham Barn I am concerned that when the tunnel is open, it will be almost impossible. It is horribly dangerous now and I believe we will have increased traffic using the A3 after the Hindhead scheme is complete. "There will be a knock-on effect of more traffic in this district and far more pressure on the roundabout, and those of us trying to get between Liss and Selborne will have problems." She said EHDC representatives had a meeting with the Highways Agency in August 2004 when the agency said its preferred option was to replace the roundabout with a flyover for the Liss and Selborne traffic. But Liss and Selborne villagers could find themselves at loggerheads after the results of a traffic survey published by the Selborne Traffic Action Group (STAG). The survey revealed that nearly 60 per cent of the 134 Selborne households who took part wanted to see the Ham Barn roundabout closed, removing the direct link to the B3006. Mrs Cartwright told The Herald: "This would be terrible for the people of Liss. We are bigger than Selborne and a lot of people from Liss need to go to Alton and Basingstoke to work, and this is the shortest and best route. "It would be dangerous because more traffic would use the roads through Greatham and Liss Forest. We already have problems, particularly with buses on the narrow, windy Liss Forest Road, and more traffic would make it even more dangerous." But she said she sympathised with Selborne villagers, adding: "I know traffic is a big problem for them, and I would agree it needs a bypass."
