AS local people assess the implications of the draft orders for the A3 Hindhead Tunnel scheme, the local campaign group, Save the Old A3, STOAT, has made its comments on the proposals.

The much-needed bypass, said the group, will " relieve local communities of the misery caused by through traffic using a local, inadequate road network.

However, a spokesman for said: "It is equally disappointing that these orders carry a continued determination to close the old A3 around the Punch Bowl.

Listing its comments about the non-technical summary, which was published alongside the draft oders, the group considers that the "balance of benefits" set out in the summary is heavily and unfairly weighted in favour of environmental factors as they are interpreted by the trustees of the Punch Bowl, ie the National Trust and their supporters of old A3 closure.

"It fails to recognise, or indeed acknowledge, that the local community is part of the local environment and does have needs just as important as the protection of wildlife

"The A3 across the Punch Bowl is a long-established part of the local road network providing access to and from the north. It is a valuable local asset for the people of Hindhead, Grayshott, Beacon Hill, Churt, and Shottermill. Its removal will distort and concentrate local traffic flows.

"Its loss will also remove a direct, simple, alternative route when the bypass is blocked. In turn, this will prompt rat-running on unsuitable local roads, - even gridlock - and the use of dangerous contraflow working of traffic in the new tunnel."

Further comments include:

• It over emphasises and fails to substantiate the benefits to wild life and Sites of Special Scientific Interest that (it is claimed) will lead on from the closure of the old A3.

The A3 is only one of many factors that interact within the common's environmental equation, and yet this narrow strip across the commons is portrayed as all-important and all influential.

• It over-emphasises the unsubstantiated claim that the A3 is causing damage to wild life within Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Protection Areas (SPA). This is now as well as when it resumes its role as a country road.

If the old A3 is such a dominant, all-important factor in the environmental equation of the Punch Bowl, how is it that the SSSIs and the SPAs have flourished alongside the existing, heavily used A3? Moreover, it is difficult to imagine how the destruction of the old A3 would significantly "enhance the status of the SSSI and SPA".

• It boasts that the "the published scheme complies well with policies and plans from national through to local level, both statutory and non-statutory". Yet the scheme breaches declared government policy as set out in its policy guidance document 13, and recent White Paper on transport.

"It deliberately adds to the distance that local people must travel when going to and from the north and in practice adds to atmospheric pollution that is causing global warming.

• It misleads the reader into believing that conditions on the old A3 for walkers, cyclists, horse riders and others following the opening of the bypass will be exactly the same as they are at present.

If left open, the old A3 will revert to a country road and will accommodate leisure and every day local activities as many other similar roads throughout the Britain.

In practice, all leisure activities within the SSSI and SPA will be strictly controlled to protect wild life.

The impression that once free from the old A3, horseriders, cyclists and people with dogs will roam unimpeded and at will across the common is misleading.

The non-technical summary of the Environmental Statement does nothing to convince the campaign that the proposed scheme justifies closing the old A3 after the bypass is built.