Letter: Trying to sort Lyndhurst roads has caused issues elsewhere

I read the article about ‘rat-run traffic’ through Emery Down (A&T 18th Oct) and as one who uses the road fairly regularly, I was sorry to hear about the distress felt by the lady resident who has seen an increase in the volume of traffic over the years.

For some context to the issue, this has come about progressively since the 1930s when residents in the nearby town of Lyndhurst, which sprung up around the intersection of two major routes, began looking for relief from traffic in the form of a bypass but its progress was halted by the actions of an Austrian corporal in 1939.

The traffic growth didn’t stop, and the bypass solution was raised again in 1987 in the form of a private members bill in parliament but was subjected to a filibuster by the New Forest MP at the time in spite of promising not to hinder its progress.

The local council simply compounded the problem by reducing the High Street to a single lane, widened the pavements to give that boulevard feel, banned heavy goods vehicle from the town, introduced a couple of pelican crossings to the High Street in addition to the main traffic lights and when motorists began using Furzey Lawn Lane and Stable Hill to avoid the Lyndhurst traffic jams, the council introduced measures to make that route all but impassable as well.

The most cursory glance at a road map will show that the next option is to turn left at Stoney Cross to avoid the gridlock in Lyndhurst, and that in a nutshell is the reason for the dramatic increase in traffic through Emery Down.

Progress does play a part in this but the main problem for Emery Down has been a series of rather questionable decisions by various well-meaning councillors who acted on behalf of one town with no thought to the effect on the rest of the area.

In the 40 years since the rejection of the Lyndhurst bypass, the town has become the first settlement encountered by the M27 traffic heading for the New Forest or to the explosion of housing to the south of it. The east/west traffic on the A35 connecting Southampton and Dorset adds even more vehicles all wanting to get through a gridlocked town which sees lengthy queues in all directions for most of the summer.

Every motorist today has a sat-nav, and people share information online about ways of avoiding bottlenecks. The NPA actively markets the area to encourage visitors who will hopefully spend a lot of money. Lots of sailors are attracted to the marinas along the coast, and large events like the New Forest Show and the Beaulieu Autojumble take place over several days with rising numbers of visitors mostly arriving by car.

The local councillors have run out of ‘road improvement’ options and the only way to take the pressure off Emery Down is for a volte-face by the body that helped cause the problem and get the traffic back to the major road in the town of Lyndhurst by improving the traffic flow instead of trying to hold it back.

Derek Eddlestone

Dibden Purlieu