A COUNTY council highways officer withdrew a report to councillors proposing the installation of traffic lights at a town centre junction after figures supporting the move were successfully challenged by a member of the public.

Phil Crossland withdrew a report proposing the lights, which would incorporate a pedestrian phase, before it went before transportation councillors.

Mr Crossland has admitted that only one pedestrian has been injured in an accident at the junction of Downing Street, The Borough and West Street, the site of the proposed lights, in the last three years.

The withdrawn report, written by Mr Crossland's colleague Tracey Webb, had claimed the figure was nine.

The report said the "key issue" was the number of pedestrians injured at the junction which, it claimed, was the highest such figure in Waverley.

The decision to withdraw the item from a meeting of the county council's Waverley local committee came after Farnham man Jez Hyman questioned the figures.

Indeed Mr Hyman claims Mr Crossland had conceded to him that there have been no pedestrian injury accidents at the junction in the last four-and-half years. But a spokesman for Surrey County Council maintained that one accident had happened at the location in the last three years.

Mr Hyman says four of the nine accidents cited by Surrey road officer Tracey Webb in her report were between 10 and 20 metres away from the junction and two were on the pedestrian crossing by Boots in The Borough.

Other accidents happened outside the Queens Head pub, 50 metres from the The Borough's junction with Downing Street and on the pedestrian crossing outside the post office in West Street.

He claims even the four accidents between 10 and 20 metres of the junction did not involve pedestrians crossing the road.

"Basically I asked my son James, 15, whether the Downing St/Borough junction is dangerous, and he said no," said Mr Hyman, who lives in The Chantrys.

"I checked and it seems he was right. Surrey County Council were wrong. I told them, they withdrew it. At least they knew it'd be embarrassing for them at the meeting otherwise."

A Surrey County Council spokesman responded: "It's not exactly true what Mr Hyman said. Phil didn't concede that no accidents had happened in the immediate vicinity, only one had.

"But he said the other accidents wouldn't have been saved by having a crossing. The idea of the crossing isn't an accident measure. Tt's about improving the environment. Phil also wants to do some more research by putting ideas through a computer model."

The withdrawn report stated that vehicles weaving between lanes after the junction causes "a number of accidents as drivers are concentrating on the traffic around them and not necessarily at the existing pelican crossing (in The Borough)."

The report states that 50 per cent of people polled at an exhibition in July 2000, supported the idea of traffic lights with a pedestrian phase at the Downing Street/The Borough/West Street junction, while 35 per cent were against it.

In the same survey, 60 per cent of respondents felt there is no need for any more town centre pedestrian crossings, 40 per cent said there is.

The report's withdrawal does not herald the end of the proposed traffic lights but their reconsideration following further research.