DISTRICT planners have allowed a DIY giant to back out of an agreement that would have massively improved a busy junction in Alton. Focus DIY was supposed to carry out the works, at the junction of Mill Lane/Anstey Road, before starting to build the new store and garden centre on the BOCM Pauls Ltd site in Mill Lane. A traffic light-controlled junction or similar scheme was expected for the junction opposite Eggar's School which is particularly busy during rush hour. But after finding out that the neighbouring Waterbrook Estate had not carried out the road improvements it agreed to in 1997 after getting outline planning permission for industrial and warehouse units, Focus, too, wanted to opt out. Instead, Focus asked East Hampshire District Council to let it simply widen the section of Mill Lane at and approaching the junction, to form two lanes. In a statement sent to the district council, Focus argued that the traffic generated by the development of the Waterbrook Estate was expected to be less than originally estimated. It added: "The offsite highway works referred to in the planning condition of (Focus') permission were designed on the basis of the original Waterbrook traffic flows and the estimated maximum flows to the new Focus store on the Mill Lane site. "Focus' highway consultants, WSP, have revisited their original calculations taking account of the flows now estimated and agreed with Hampshire County Council as being generated by the Waterbrook development. "These calculations show that once the BOCM site is redeveloped, the Mill Lane/Anstey Road junction only fails on the Mill Lane leg. WSP have therefore designed a proposal which only widens the Mill Lane carriageway and makes the junction function effectively." The change of heart angered Alton Town Council which had hoped that the much needed improvements to the junction would finally be undertaken. But its objection fell on deaf ears. Town mayor Paddy Mendham said it was "appalling" that the DIY store would now not have to carry out the improvements previously agreed. He said: "I really think that the people that have allowed this don't know what is happening in that corner of our town. "We, the town council, are very much against them getting out of doing these improvements. The store is presumably going to generate a lot more traffic down at that end of the town."
