logo



Planning - Trust Annual Report 1972

While in favour of planning as the lesser of many evils there should be better co-ordination. For instance in this Report we have praised the original version of the St. Cross Road and Christchurch Road Study, but, paragraph eleven reveals, that this was drawn up without reference to the Winchester Traffic Plan. The Winchester Traffic Plan in its turn was drawn up without any knowledge of the activities of another group of planners busy working on the M3. There was plainly no co-ordination between the recently completed Chandlers Ford By-pass designers and the M3 planners. If there had been, a little further thought would have made the Compton-Southampton road an acceptable termination to the M3, which the AA and the RAC assure us it is not, so perhaps the opponents of the M3 have something to be thankful for here. During the Winchester Inquiry, the representatives of the Road Construction Unit were insistent that they could not consider any scheme close to Winchester which did not conform to full motorway standards, but for the final section of the road from Compton to Southampton, full motorway standards are not proposed.