BUSINESSMEN along the former A3 road between Rake and Liphook are furious at a decision to close the road, just a month before Christmas - their busiest trading time of the year.

They are also enraged that they were not consulted about the closure and claim they stand to lose thousands of pounds.

Hampshire County Council has agreed to a road closure on the B2070 Portsmouth Road for three weeks from Monday, November 26.

The closure is to allow Railtrack to carry out repairs to their bridge which crosses the former A3 close to Liphook Golf Club south of the village.

The road is expected to be closed for two weeks and will mean that all traffic travelling south from Liphook will have long diversions.

Owner of the Black Fox pub Allan Keith told The Herald: ÒWe stand to lose between £15,000 to £20,000 over the two-week period. December is our busiest time of the year - without December, it makes January, February and March very precarious for us indeed.Ó

He said he had contacted Railtrack to protest at the lack of consultation. ÒThey just didnÕt want to know and there will be no compensation whatsoever.Ó

He said consultants to Railtrack, a company called Traffic Management Systems, were supposed to have consulted local businesses and residents on the closure several months ago.

ÒThis just didnÕt happen and we found out last Tuesday about the road closure. We have had no chance to plan or make arrangements to alleviate the situation, it is absolutely and totally unfair.Ó

Mr Keith claimed Railtrack had known it wanted to carry out the work two years ago.

ÒThey have a very blinkered view. They have only considered two strips of metal which carry the trains across the bridge, they have taken no account of the roads and the cars that carry people under the bridge.Ó

Andrew Prince, proprietor of PrinceÕs Garden Centre, said at the time of the road closure he would be putting Christmas trees on sale.

He said more than 40 per cent of his customers came from north of the garden centre and he had no idea how they would react to the road closure.

ÒOne of the things that makes me so furious is that Railtrack knew about this a year ago, their sub contractors knew six months ago and the consultants knew two months ago.

ÒTwo months ago I was having 30,000 leaflets, including a map, designed to send to potential customers.

ÒThey were already off the press before anyone knew anything about this closure and four-page colour leaflets are not cheap.Ó

He said he had tried to contact Railtrack Òbut they just donÕt careÓ.

Mr Prince is now very concerned to ensure he is consulted over diversion signs at either end of the road.

ÒI want to be involved in talks about the signs because I need to ensure people know we are still open for business and so far, I have not been consulted about that either.Ó

Steve Smith, proprietor of the business And So To Bed, told The Herald he knew nothing about the closure until last Monday and work had already been carried out to promote sales in December and January.

ÒThere has been a total lack of communication between people here and nobody has thought about the local rural business community at all, this has just been thrown at us.Ó

He said local councils were supposed to promote rural businesses but he felt they had been let down.

Hampshire County Council, which authorised the road closure, had not passed on any information.

A spokesman for Railtrack told The Herald: ÒThis is essential engineering work which we do need to carry out for the continued safe operation of the railway.

ÒThe application to close the road was put in on our behalf within the required time scale.

ÒWe will be doing everything we can to get the work done as soon as possible. We have a three week closure but if we can open the road before this, we will.Ó