In a welcome change of direction for the regeneration of the town centre, it seems that the ghost of HS2 may be appearing at Havant Station sometime in 2025. The government’s ‘Local Transport Fund‘, generated from the recent HS2 project cancellation savings, is not just being redistributed across the North of England and the Midlands, but is also heading down here to the South of England where the treasury’s pledge of £132 million to fix Hampshire’s potholes has already been announced.
Havant Civic Society now understands that £8 million of the Local Transport Fund has already been secured for the replacement of Havant’s sadly neglected and unloved railway footbridge.
The bridge is currently closed while works are carried out to give it one final year of life. To townsfolk and visitors alike, it’s safe to say that this sad, rusting testament to a decade or more of neglect will not be missed. When demolition and construction plans are made public, we’ll be looking to see how a temporary crossing route will be maintained for the duration of the development project.
Is there hope now for the missing Southleigh Link?
The existence of the Local Transport Fund opens up the rather more fundamental question of whether Hampshire County Council have considered funding from this pot for the equally long-overdue design and construction of the missing ‘Southleigh spine’ link road between Bartons Road and the A27. The long-awaited new link road was originally intended to provide development access to the ‘Southleigh gap’ for the provision of the new homes that Havant Borough Council has long-needed to meet the government’s housing targets.
Several years later, the requirement for this key piece of transport infrastructure has grown ever more urgent. Chichester District Council’s permission for multiple housing developments between Emsworth and Fishbourne has, quite predictably, resulted in a significant increase in the volume of traffic heading westward, through Emsworth, towards the Warblington junction. With West Sussex County Council also in receipt of equivalent funding from the Local Transport Fund, we would like to think that the two County Councils already have their traffic teams working together on the solution for enhanced access to the A27, the last known plans for which are now woefully out of date.
Following Havant Borough Council’s ill-advised decision to increase town centre traffic by another 5000 Amazon vehicle movements a day, the Southleigh / A27 link would provide an essential safety valve for the town centre’s ticking traffic timebomb. With the Amazon DPO1 delivery station already spilling its rat-run traffic past Fairfield School and out to the A27 at Warblington, local road users may not be encouraged to hear of this week’s opening of the Amazon DBN5 delivery station at Bersted, just south east of Chichester, which now feeds yet more traffic onto the already stretched A259 and A27.
Havant Civic Society 