HASLEMERE escaped the brunt of last week's severe storms but falling trees and other damage kept local emergency services busy all weekend.

A tree brought down by the high winds created traffic chaos along the A3 on Saturday afternoon.

Emergency services were called out at 1-25 pm when the tree, which was around a foot in diameter, fell across the carriageway and on to a car some 200 metres from the Hindhead traffic lights, close to the Crossways Road junction to Grayshott.

The driver of the Honda Civic escaped uninjured, but huge tailbacks built up in both directions with a 10-mile queue between Hindhead and Milford and one for some four miles in the opposite direction.

It took almost two hours to clear the road.

The driver of a passing mobile crane used his heavy vehicle to move the tree, freeing one lane of the busy Portsmouth to London trunk road by 2-30 pm. A tree surgeon was also called and the road was fully reopen by 4-30 pm.

Another driver also had a lucky escape when a tree landed on his car in Liphook

The incident happened on the old A3 near the iron bridge. The tree took out power cables before hitting the nearby vehicle.

Haslemere firefighters also dealt with a number of incidents over the weekend.

On Saturday they cleared the branch of a large silver birch tree that snapped off and came crashing down near Whitmore Vale House on Churt Road, and were also called out to remove a fascia which had become dangerous at the post office in Beacon Hill.

Leading firefighter Ray Esher told The Herald: "We were very lucky. It was nice to get through this weather without too many problems."