ON a couple of occasions now, readers have suggested that my comments in your September 29 edition were in favour of the closure of Andover Road.

As a reminder of what I actually said: “Having two main roads running in parallel would be an act of insanity in terms of urban planning and traffic planning. You can’t have both, that makes no sense at all”.  Either Andover Road needs to change or the plans for Winchester Avenue need to change – I continue to believe you can’t leave both as they are.

It has also been suggested that the proposed Winchester Avenue will ‘zig-zag’ through the estate – which is either deliberately dishonest – or suggests that your correspondent hasn’t looked at the agreed plans for the road.   If it did zig-zag through the estate there would be less of a problem, but that isn’t what the County Council and Secretary of State have signed off.

The most recent letter even suggested that there will be ‘parked vehicles and road works along the route’ which indicates that not only has the correspondent not looked at the plans, they haven’t visited the estate either – where the side roads intended to manage parking and deliveries are in place for all to see – where there is a wide swale and a separate delivery road between Winchester Avenue and residents’ front doors – and there is no intention or plan to allow any parking or deliveries from the road itself.

As I wrote to Cllr Heron, the county councillor responsible for Hampshire’s road network, on September 22, there is not “an agreed and coherent proposal for the road system in north Winchester”.  I’ve since spoken to Cllr Heron and made clear that the City Council is very willing to meet with Hampshire and Cala Homes to find a way forward.  But we will not find that way forward unless we’re honest about the challenges we face in sorting out the road system in the north of our city and stop pretending that “opening Andover Road” can work on its own without a wider plan to tackle all the problems that need sorting out.

Cllr Martin Tod
Leader, Winchester City Council

Winchester City Councillor, St Paul ward
Hampshire County Councillor, Winchester Westgate