CONTROVERSIAL plans for a second phase of housing development at Lowsley Farm were passed in a sudden about turn by district councillors last week after a vital relief road strategy for Liphook was unveiled to members just hours before they met.

Having deferred the scheme to build an extra 175 homes on top of the 155 already approved just a month ago, councillors gave the second tranche of new homes the green light at an extraordinary planning meeting of East Hampshire District Council last Thursday night.

The decision came after the Hampshire highways report listed five possible solutions to divert traffic away the congested village centre, and access new housing sites around Liphook which will be built over the coming decade and which threatened to swamp existing road.

On March 31, councillors voted to defer the extra houses on the Lowsley site off Longmoor Road.

EHDC leader Ferris Cowper, who had proposed the deferral, told The Herald: “The planning committee’s previous decision to defer the Lowsley Farm planning application on highway grounds, was fully justified.

“Hampshire County Council has now put forward five possible ‘strategic’ highway solutions to deal with the increased traffic flows.”

Option one – construction of a short link road through the recreation ground to the east of Liphook centre, to link Haslemere and London Road. with a one-way gyratory within the centre of Liphook, thereby removing right-turn movements.

Option two – construction of a new road link through the western end of Radford Park to connect the London Road to Meadow Way or Malthouse Meadows.

Option three – construction of an “eastern developments” link road between Haslemere and London Road through the housing sites identified within the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), sites adjacent to Bramshott Place and Stonehouse Road, including the construction of a new bridge across the River Wey.

Option four – construction of a north-western ring road, through the Lowsley Farm development between Longmoor and Headley Road, crossing land which has planning permission for a suitable alternative natural greenspace (SANG).

Option five – construction of a south-western ring road through land owned by the Northcott Trust to link Longmoor and Portsmouth Road, which could also provide an alternative access to Bohunt School. With effective signage in place, the study advises the latter option could reduce traffic through the Liphook double mini-roundabouts by up to 30 per cent.

Mr Cowper explained the proposals were developed on behalf of the county council by engineering consultant W H Atkins. He said it came as a relief to everyone that the report clearly dismissed all three cosmetic changes to the mini-roundabouts in The Square which would have “negligible impact, less capacity” and not be “considered a viable option”.

Mr Cowper added: “Mini-roundabout improvement was the applicant’s preferred initial approach, so I hope we can all rely on those ideas being consigned to history.”

“What we have now is a list of five possibilities, all of which will benefit the village and specifically options four and five seem to have the potential to achieve very significant beneficial impact.

“A very large budget has now been set aside to develop these five options further, leading to the preferred choice we expect will alleviate much of the traffic harm caused by the extra 330 dwellings.”

Mr Cowper added: “There is still a lot of work to be done. Because Liphook is split in two by the planning boundary between EHDC and the South Downs National Park, it isn’t possible to build inside the EHDC part without some impact on the latter. That could mean the most effective relief-road option may have to take some of the land within the park boundary to keep traffic moving in The Square.

“I just hope this challenge will be managed co-operatively and maturely by both planning authorities.

“Every Liphook resident and business will be damaged if there is any suggestion that no land in the park area can be taken to ease the congestion in The Square.

“So there is still plenty of work to be done. This has been an immensely complex planning application to deal with, falling as it does between many rocks and even more hard places.

“Not only does the solution involve both planning authorities, but there are two outstanding appeals which are affected by this decision and getting this one wrong could add a further 50 per cent to Liphook’s housebuilding.

“On top of that, there had to be an effective remedy to deal with the vehicle movements from 330 new dwellings and also time was running out for the council on this application. All these issues had to be balanced and under the circumstances I don’t think we could have done a better job.

“I was also able to ensure the proposals to deal with foul sewage, a known nightmare for that part of Liphook, would be brought back to the planning committee for scrutiny by councillors before any building work could be carried out.

“Such a measure is very unusual, since it is usually delegated to council officers.

“However as the county councillor, I saw for myself the misery this problem can cause and so I wanted to be sure the proposed solutions were fully evaluated.”

EHDC planning portfolio holder Angela Glass said passing the application gave approval to the allocated site within Liphook.

She said: “Five options were considered within the highways study and it was generally considered options one to three were not very desirable, while option four, and option five, were the two worth considering.

“The results of this study will at some point go out to public consultation.”