FEARS that not enough priority has been given to safety measures in the £107 million Hindhead tunnel scheme have come in the wake of last week's Gotthard tragedy in Switzerland.

Local people are calling for the Highways Agency look again at their plans, including keeping the existing stretch of the A3 open.

Their plea comes after 11 died and many are still unaccounted for in latest fatal fire in European tunnels.

In letters to The Herald this week, local residents have called for a number of alternatives to be considered to the existing Hindhead tunnel scheme.

Michael Bateman, of Kingswood Firs, Grayshott, blames the National Trust and "negative attitude" of the Highways Agency for not coming up with a scheme to keep the existing stretch of the A3 open when the tunnel is built.

"In the interests of safety, and as an alternative route, the retention of the existing A3 is even more important now," said Mr Bateman.

"The history of Hindhead junction is a classic example of incompetence and weak government.

"How is it that all the improvements to the A3 have been completed without dealing with the most important bottleneck?" asked Mr Bateman in his letter.

John Turk from Camelsdale Road said that after incidents such as Gotthard, many people will refuse to use a tunnel and so rat-running will increase.

"Having worked in a mine," he said, "I would never enter a tunnel with vehicle fuel tanks travelling at 70 mph," he claimed.

In his letter to The Herald this week, Chris Jones from Headley Road, Grayshott, also calls for the present A3 at Hindhead to stay.

Comments come following the second public meeting last month on the ever-controversial scheme, at which the Highways Agency was criticised for not taking local opinion into account.

Former Grayshott Parish Council chairman Pat White was one of the many people who argued for keeping the existing A3 open.

"When - not if - there is an accident on the approach to the tunnel, there must be another route to deal with emergencies."

This week Mrs White told The Herald: "I would just like to reiterate the Highways Agency's project leader Paul Arnold's words, that there has to be compromise, but it has to be on both sides.

"At the moment, I think all the compromise is taking place on our side, with very little from the environmentalists."

Mrs White stressed the importance of residents writing to their local representatives at the parish and district councils who are represented on the Project Advisory Group and the Wider Reference Group.

"More than anything we need to make the Highways Agency and the National Trust aware of the views of the majority of people like me who have concerns," she said.

She believed that safety should be a top priority: "Ît is either a question of keeping the existing A3 open or scrapping the tunnel altogether and going back to the drawing board.

"I think that that would be a retrograde step- we'd still be talking in ten years' time. If you look at the state of the A3 now, it's bumper to bumper morning and evening. We need an alternative route."

A spokesman for the Highways Agency added that they wanted to stress the difference between the Gotthard and Hindhead tunnels.

She said: "The Alpine tunnel is a single bore, the A3 scheme will be a twin bore. This means that it will be a lot safer because there are a number of connecting tunnels to allow for movement between the two."

"As the process goes on, there are working parties looking into safety issues, and there has been a lot of dialogue with the emergency services," she said.

"Safety is being looked at very seriously."