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VILLAGERS in Pitt have been refused a 30mph speed limit on their roads because there are not enough houses in the appropriate places, according to Hampshire County Council.

Residents of the village had been trying to get the speed limit lowered as part of Hampshire County Council's Village 30' project, which encouraged people to put in bids to have the speed limit reduced to 30mph if they thought the current speed limit was too high.

Nick Molden, who lives in Pitt, spearheaded an attempt to get the current limit of 50mph reduced to 30pmh, as he and other residents believed the village was cut in half by the "dangerous" road.

But his application was turned down because there were not enough houses either side of the main road to warrant a change, according to the council.

In a letter to Mr Molden, the council wrote that Pitt did not "meet the frontage criteria for rural villages set down by the government guidance because there are insufficient houses on either side of the A3090".

Mr Molden said that the council had applied criteria, not made public during the application process, at the last minute when deciding.

He said that when he applied, the only stipulation was that only villages with more than 20 houses within a certain distance could apply.

As Pitt has around 25 houses, split across the A3090, residents worked hard to produce the bid. But he said that at the last minute, the council seemed to have changed its mind and considered the two areas on either side of the A3090 separately, rather than as one village as a whole.

Mr Molden said: "At no point in the application process were we told that it was going to be judged like that, and indeed this condition is not in the central government guidance. Why raise expectations when you plan to take an extremely restrictive interpretation?"

He is now looking into other ways to get action, but fears that it could be some time before anything is done. He added: "We have demonstrable local support and proven need in terms of road safety, and are willing to do our bit to improve the village."

The County Council is due to look at improving safety on the A3090 as part of a review on A and B roads, but even the review process will not be completed until 2011. In the meantime, Mr Molden hopes to find out how the criteria was changed and get an explanation as to why Pitt did not make it.

He added: "I accept that other villages rank above Pitt in size, but I think Pitt should qualify and should not be rejected because of a spurious interpretation of the rules."

The father-of-two also hopes to get the council's traffic management team on board to look at improving road safety in narrow Enmill Lane, which currently has a 50mph limit, despite being a single track country road with no footpaths.

A spokeswoman for Hampshire County Council said that one of the strict criteria for the Village 30 Project was that there had to be a minimum of 20 properties within 600m along a continuous length of road.

She added that the council learned from the first year that it was not always easy for the parishes to work out whether the criteria, which they were told about, applied to a particular village.

Because of this the Executive Member for Environment Cllr Mel Kendal sent a letter this year advising all parishes the council would do a reality check' on roads in question to see whether they met the criteria, before Hampshire Action Teams (HATs) were asked to prioritise the bids.

Those that did not meet the criteria were rejected for the project and the HATs were told they needed to be dealt with outside the Village 30 scheme.

The spokeswoman added: "We've told Pitt that we understand their particular issues, and possible solutions will be looked at under the traffic management programme, but this will of course take time."

7:43am Wednesday 14th May 2008

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