Tuesday 2nd Feb: Salt Lane was blocked again this morning by a lost 40 tonne HGV. The driver, like most of the stuck lorries, had come from the A3 via Milford heading for Cranleigh. He gets to the Hydestile crossroads and sees the signs stating “Unsuitable for HGVs” if turning North to Godalming…. so his natural, and not unreasonable, inclination is to go another, unprohibitted way – East up Salt Lane (or South into Hambledon) – both are near impassable, yet there are no signs indicating this. 300 yards up Salt Lane he wisely tried to turn around (with help) and travel back to the A3, and caused a log jam of traffic which was cleared by two residents marshalling the cars that were reluctant to back up. So the question is what can be done to avoid this? The problem is the Highways Department signs. At Hydestile it is far too late to telltrucks to turn around and return to Milford (there is no route for themto proceed down other than turn around). Currently the half-baked and confusing crossroads signs contradict each other.
Ideally the signs need to be at a point early enough for them not to need toproceed any further, and where there is a turnaround space. I thinkthat is the junction of Station Road and Tuesley Lane, OR at the Milford Crossroads before they enter Station Road. GPS is not entirelyblameless, but proper signs would probably over-ride any drivers thatblindly follow their GPS.
Can we lobby the highways department?
Severe weather conditions are continuing to create problems on Hambledon’s roads.
Following the recent heavy snowfall, which led to lengthy power cuts, Hambledon Parish Council has written to Southern Electric (Scottish and Southern Energy) requesting it gives serious consideration to replacing overhead with underground cables and, in the meantime, trims back branches beside powerlines on a more regular basis.
THE annual Christmas Party at the Village Hall raised £1,183 for charity – the largest amount in the history of the event.
