SIR: The Chronicle of April 15 reports the successful application for an additional house in the garden of Plover Hill on Compton Down. Hitherto, there has been a moratorium on additional development on Compton Down on the grounds that two road junctions that provide the sole access to the area are substandard and not fit for additional traffic. This particularly applies to egress; one junction has a blind spot due to a dip in the road, while the other has a very short visibility splay.

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However, due to a change of policy at Hampshire County Council (HCC), the junctions are judged fit for 'incremental' increases in traffic. In effect HCC has declared a development free-for-all on Compton Down, in that the traffic increase due to any individual back garden development will be 'incremental' and hence of no consequence.

HCC's new policy is part of the current topsy-turvy approach to 'green' issues, traffic and road safety. On the one hand, these two junctions that were previously declared to be at safe capacity are now declared OK for unlimited increases in traffic; on the other hand, more 20mph zones are imposed on Winchester's roads. 'Green' issues are tossed aside to spend millions 'improving' the M-way junction at Winnall and converting our local part of the M3 into a 'Smart' death-way in order to encourage more road use, relocate the summer traffic jams to the M3/M27 junction and take more freight off the railways and onto lorries grinding side-by-side up the A34.

Competent authorities, acting in the public interest, would do better than this.

Roger Stevens,

Cliff Way,

Compton,

Winchester