A RELIEF road petition, which has been circulating in Christchurch while traffic in the town frequently ground to a halt during the summer, arrived to a warm reception at the borough council offices.

More than 7,000 people put their names to the petition canvassed by driving instructor Gill Elmer from Burton.

It calls on the borough to press for long-awaited relief road plans to be taken off the shelf where they were consigned by Dorset highway planners eight years ago.

Mrs Elmer, who handed the petition to the Mayor, Cllr Josephine Spencer, at the start of a full council meeting, said the present A35 bypass brought traffic to a halt in the centre of the town, where congestion increased year on year.

Castlepoint and the growth of the airport brought extra traffic to the existing road network and altering road layouts merely moved the bottlenecks further down the road or forced motorists on to minor roads to avoid the jams.

"It only takes one accident, breakdown or vehicle delivering and Christchurch becomes one large car park," said Mrs Elmer.

The petition was referred without debate for consideration at a future meeting of the council's community services committee but Cllr Spencer told Mrs Elmer: "I am sure we are all entirely in agreement with you."

And council leader Cllr John Lofts said in his 18 years on the council he had never known a member who was not in favour of a Christchurch relief road, which was deleted from the Dorset local transport plan in 1997 on the casting vote of the chairman.

"I am sure all of us will do the best we can to put that wrong right. We have always been completely unanimous on this subject. We will go on and on and on. We will not stop," he said.

Christchurch Citizens' Association chairman John White told the council: "This association fully supports the petition as we have been campaigning for a relief road for many years and I hope the petition will support the council in its endeavours."

First published: November 7