TEST Valley Borough councillors have objected to the new Romsey Primary School's access arrangements in the strongest possible terms.

The decision, taken by 16 votes to nil at a meeting of the Borough Council's Southern area planning committee was met by cheering and loud clapping from members of the public present at the meeting.

Hampshire County Council is planning to move both the Romsey Infant School and a Children's Centre to the Romsey Junior School site to create the new primary school.

"At present", said councillor Alan Marsh, "there are 130 children at the Junior School. There were 28 cars on site today, presumably all belonging to the various categories of staff yet in the new proposals there are only parking places for 22 cars.

"And the proposed access down what is currently a pedestrian path off Cupernham Lane is fraught with danger.

"At present, cars queue back from the junction with Winchester Road and there is considerable heavy lorry traffic - and into this we add the mix of parents dropping off or collecting their infant children."

His fellow Cupernham Ward councillor, Dorothy Baverstock, agreed that parking on the site was a problem but also felt that the proposals were defective in terms of parents using their cars to bring children to school.

She said: "The current infant school and the children's centre has a wider catchment and it is wrong to expect very small, infant children to be walked to school especially in winter weather.

"So the volume of parents' cars will rise not just because there are more children but because the age of the children requires more car-borne journeys. Yet there is no school travel plan in place and there is not even provision for a lay-by for dropping off the children. The County has simply not thought the matter through.

They seem to be assuming that parents will drop off children in Greatwell Drive, yet Greatwell Drive is already full of traffic accessing the doctors' surgery."

Councillors approved the principle of locating a single primary school on the one site and most were content with the design proposals. But all felt that some of the land scheduled to be sold off at the northern end of the site should be retained to keep a vehicle access off Mercer Way.

County Councillor Mark Cooper listened to the debate and told the committee that he had an appointment to see Hampshire's cabinet member with responsibility for Education, Councillor David Kirk, the following day and would pass on the strong feelings expressed by Test Valley Borough councillors.

After that meeting, Councillor Cooper explained that the cabinet member had given him the assurance that the question of the access would be reviewed by officers before a final decision was taken.

Councillor Cooper also asked that any disposal of land at the junior school should await a completion of the review by the officers.

The matter goes before the County Council's Regulatory Committee on January 10.