TOWN MP Jeremy Hunt’s ambitions for a ‘shared space’ part-pedestrianisation of Farnham town centre were dealt a blow after a grieving father blamed a shared space area in Jersey for the death of his young son.

Three year old Clinton Pringle, from North Lanarkshire in Scotland, was on holiday with his mother Stacey and his aunt and cousins when he was struck by the van while crossing Tunnel Street on their way to Millennium Town Park in St Helier in June 2016.

The van driver Rebekah Le Gal, 39, admitted causing death by careless driving and was given a suspended jail sentence of eight months.

However, Clinton’s dad, Michael, believes the ‘shared space’ road layout outside the park was a factor in his son’s death and has called for a moratorium on such spaces after visiting the scene of the tragedy.

He told BBC Radio Scotland: “I walked the exact route that Stacey and the children had taken and there was nothing that threw up a red flag or suggested any danger to me. My first thought was that he just didn’t have a chance.

“Clinton didn’t know where to run to when he saw that van approach. There was no pavement to jump back on to, so it was confusing for him.

“Stacey did shout to him to get out of the road but when you have not got a road and a pavement, how does a child differentiate?”

Shared spaces, like the one in Jersey, are an attempt to make drivers take more care by removing traffic signs, pedestrian crossings and even kerbs.

However, campaigners have highlighted the dangers they pose to blind, partially sighted and disabled people, as well as children, and have called for a halt on the use of such schemes, pending “clear national guidance that explicitly addresses the needs of disabled people”.

Jeremy Hunt has long advocated shared space as a potential solution to Farnham’s traffic problems, and promoted such a scheme in the build-up to his successful referendum on a ‘part-pedestrianisation’ of the town centre in 2014.

It is unknown whether shared space still forms part of Mr Hunt’s current plans for the town centre - for which a consultation was pushed back by Surrey County Council last month - but responding to the tragedy in Jersey this week, the MP said it would be “over-hasty” to dismiss such a scheme.

Mr Hunt said: “Our hearts go out to the family of this small boy. But we should not be over-hasty in drawing conclusions about road safety as there is much evidence that shared spaces reduce the number of accidents.”