TRAFFIC campaigners in Selborne are calling for the closure of the A3's Ham Barn roundabout - a move which could see a substantial increase in traffic on the A325 through Bordon. Members of the Selborne Traffic Action Group (STAG) want the roundabout to be replaced with a flyover, severing the direct link between the A3 and the B3006, which runs through Selborne and is used as a commuter rat-run between Portsm-outh and Basingstoke. Without a replacement road, this would make the A325 through Bordon the most obvious shortcut, at a time when the south coast has been earmarked for substantial housing development, leading to more commuters on roads. The comments were made at a public meeting last week, held by STAG to discuss the findings of a village-wide traffic survey. In the survey - which was completed by 134 of Selborne's 237 households - more than half of respondents (58 per cent) supported calls for the roundabout to be closed and the direct link severed. STAG leaders told The Herald that, although it did not want to push Selborne's traffic problems onto another parish, they were stuck with no room to expand the B3006 and no room or money to build a bypass around selboure Asked about the potential effect of the roundabout closure on Bordon's main road, STAG chairman Amanda Martin said that staying on the A3 would be a more attractive prospect to motorists after the Hind-head tunnel opened. She added that, following the opening of the tunnel, provisionally scheduled to be finished in time for the Olympics in 2012, the Ham Barn would become the only obstacle slowing traffic on the A3. Focusing on traffic looking for a shortcut to Alton, she said: "The A-road (the A325) is the trunk road that the majority of traffic should be using and that is the one which should be developed to deal with any increased traffic. "The B3006 doesn't have room to become an A-road and there's no room for a bypass so we are stuck." Fellow STAG member Andrew Martin said that bearing the brunt of traffic would not have to be a lottery for towns and villages bordering the A3 if there was a designated route to the A31 rather than several rat-runs. He said: "With the sale of Ministry of Defence land, there might be room to put a new route from the A3 to the A31. It is an opportunity to provide a sensible bypass arrangement for all the towns and villages affected. "It would have to carefully thought through, but it is definitely a possibility." His suggested Bordon bypass would run to the west of the town. Mr Martin said that the money spent repairing Stoner Hill was a "lost opportunity" to build a straighter, less-hazardous route between Stoner Hill and the A272, running diagonally to meet the Froxfield road. This, he said, would then encourage local motorists travelling between Alton and Petersfield to head for the currently under- used A32. He said: "I think those repairs were a lost opportunity because the damage could probably happen again. The highways team could have spent that money on a better link bypassing Stoner Hill. That is the kind of strategic link we would like to see. "We want to work with Hampshire County Council and other nearby towns and villages to achieve the right results. There is no point offloading our traffic problems onto anyone else. "This needs all the parish councils to come together to see what strategic plans they would like to see. They should understand what each other's issues are and maybe together agree a plan to put to HCC to alleviate our individual problems." His wife, Sue Martin, argued that action needed to be taken quickly as the present situation on the B3006 was a "nightmare". She said: "I have two teenage sons and when the younger one goes out on his bike I'm a nervous wreck because I don't know if he will come back." Selborne parish councillor David Ashcroft said that the direct link to the B3006 from the Ham Barn was the source of all the village's traffic problems. He claimed this was despite the roundabout having been intended as a temporary measure, while the A325 flyover was being built in the early 1990s, which should have been removed years ago. Mr Ashcroft said the county council's decision to keep the roundabout in place had been the "easy way out" of facing congestion problems because it reasoned a rat-run through Selborne only affected 600 people. But he criticised the decision for being shortsighted, arguing that visitors to the village were put off returning by the volume and speed of traffic, and this was costing it millions of pounds each year in lost tourism. Mr Ashcroft said: "Selborne could be a national template of how a county council could destroy a picturesque village. The Ham Barn roundabout is a traffic hazard and should be removed sooner rather than later." The B3006 will be closed for three weeks when a date is set for resurfacing works through Selborne, and STAG members said they will be closely monitoring the routes chosen by motorists to see what they think is the best alternative.
