Is Empshott Grange a safe school location?

Applicant's swept-path analysis depicts simultaneous passing at a 3.35 m pinch point

The photographs above record the measured carriageway width of approximately 3.35 m at this point on Mill Lane, alongside the roughly 4.5 m that two vehicles would actually need to pass. This is the same point through which the applicant's swept-path analysis depicts two opposing vehicle movements.

The applicant's own stated vehicle widths are 2.06 m for the L3 H3 Ford Transit and 1.80 m for the SDV, giving a combined body width of 3.86 m, excluding mirrors (Additional Highways Plans, SDNP/25/03084/FUL).

The combined stated body width therefore exceeds the measured carriageway width by approximately 0.51 m before any allowance is made for wing mirrors, clearance between the vehicles, or clearance from the edges of the carriageway. In practical terms, the discrepancy would be greater once mirrors and even a minimal passing gap were taken into account.

This raises an important question as to how the simultaneous swept paths shown on drawing TR/06 can be reconciled with the physical dimensions of the highway at this location.

This is particularly relevant because Hampshire County Council Highways expressly refers to TR/06 in its substantive consultation response and states that the drawings show a minibus and car, and two minibuses, passing simultaneously along Church Lane. Although the measured pinch point is on Mill Lane immediately beyond the Church Lane junction, the swept paths shown on TR/06 continue through the junction and across this location.

Hampshire County Council Highways also records that, with the proposed development, traffic on Mill Lane would increase to approximately one two-way vehicle movement every 90 seconds during the AM and PM school peak periods, and specifically acknowledges that this “increases the risk of two vehicles meeting along Mill Lane”.

If two vehicles meet at this 3.35 m pinch point, the applicant's own dimensions indicate that they cannot simply pass one another. One vehicle would have to stop, wait, reverse or find a wider location. With substantially increased movements concentrated into the school arrival and departure periods, this creates a clear risk of recurring vehicle conflict and localised queuing close to the Church Lane/Mill Lane junction.

Are Hampshire County Council Highways aware that simultaneous passing at this specific point appears to be physically impossible, despite the submitted swept-path analysis depicting opposing vehicle movements through it? If so, has the operational consequence of vehicles having to stop, wait or reverse at this pinch point been specifically assessed when considering the proposed increase in school traffic?

Two cars only fit side by side here by driving up the banks

These photographs show two Land Rover Discovery Sports stopped side by side at the 3.35 m pinch point shown on the applicant’s swept-path drawing. The first looks north, away from Empshott Grange; the second looks south, towards it.

Each vehicle is about 1.90 m wide without mirrors and 2.17 m with them, so together they need 3.80 m before mirrors are counted, more than the 3.35 m available. The only way to place them side by side was to drive each one up onto the bank on its side of the lane, against the hedge. On the lane itself, there is no room for them to pass.

Each Discovery Sport is slightly wider than the applicant’s 1.80 m design car, but together the pair is narrower than the Ford Transit and car shown passing in the applicant’s drawing: 3.80 m against 3.86 m without mirrors, and 4.34 m against about 4.50 m with mirrors.

They could only be positioned here because their high ground clearance let them climb the banks, something an ordinary car or a Transit van would struggle to do.

Regular passing of this kind would also wear away the verge and hedgerow bank on the eastern side, the same features the applicant’s Preliminary Ecological Appraisal commits to retaining “unaffected”.

The school is likely to be inaccessible several times a year

On the evening of 18 November 2025 a collision on the B3006 caused queues to back up into the adjoining lanes, and traffic across Empshott — Mill Lane and Church Lane included — ground to a halt. With no viable alternative route, a single incident on the main road renders the surrounding network effectively impassable. In those conditions access for emergency vehicles would be severely constrained. Incidents like this occur several times a year, and when they do, parents and children may be unable either to reach the school or to leave it. This is the network into which school-generated traffic would be added.

Nobody can get in or out of the village

Following a collision on the B3006, traffic was diverted onto Church Lane — a lane that cannot carry two-way flow. The diverted two-way traffic met head-on with nowhere to pass, and the result was gridlock (recorded here at 06:50). Each time the main road fails, the village lanes inherit traffic they were never built to take.

A crash on the B3006 blocks the village

On 20 October 2024, a crash on the B3006 sent traffic onto Church Lane. With nowhere to pass or turn, drivers abandoned their vehicles on private property, and residents were unable to enter or leave the village. The same pattern was recorded again on 3 February 2026: when the main road is blocked, the village is cut off.

At the proposed 4.8 m width, large vehicles may still be unable to pass safely at the angled junction

A 2014 BMW X5 is approximately 1.938 m wide excluding mirrors, while the applicant's refuse vehicle is stated as 2.53 m wide. On those body-width dimensions alone, the two vehicles would occupy 4.468 m of the proposed 4.8 m carriageway, leaving only 0.33 m of theoretical total remaining width — before allowing for mirrors or any practical driving clearance.

Including mirrors, the margin becomes smaller still. The X5 is approximately 2.184 m mirror-to-mirror. If the refuse vehicle's actual mirror-to-mirror width is approximately 2.9 m, their combined width would be about 5.084 m, exceeding the proposed carriageway width by approximately 0.28 m.

The proposed widening to 4.8 m is intended to improve two-way movement at the junction. However, Hampshire County Council Highways itself acknowledges that with larger vehicles there are circumstances where passing a car is unachievable within the highway constraints.

This is particularly important because the approach from the south on the B3006 is heavily restricted by the geometry of the junction. In the filmed example, an approaching vehicle becomes visible to a vehicle waiting to emerge only around 0.75 seconds before the potential conflict point. If either vehicle is slightly out of position, there is therefore very little time to recognise the conflict and correct its position.

An entering HGV or refuse vehicle may consequently have to brake, stop or manoeuvre extremely cautiously before it can clear the B3006. The concern is therefore that, even after widening to 4.8 m, the combination of a large vehicle, an exiting car, minimal lateral clearance and very limited reaction time may still create a significant conflict at the junction.

Limited visibility approaching the Mill Lane junction

Approaching the Mill Lane junction from the south, visibility is effectively blind until the last moment. Even with the proposed widening, drivers may have very little time to see and react to vehicles entering or leaving the junction.

HGVs must turn several times just to enter Mill Lane

Filmed in September 2026, this clip shows a heavy goods vehicle turning off the B3006 into Mill Lane. The junction is so tight that the HGV cannot complete the turn in one movement — it has to shunt back and forth, making several turns to line itself up with the lane, holding up traffic on the B3006 as it does so.

The proposed widening of the junction would help with this — but only when the lane is clear. With vehicles queued on Mill Lane waiting to exit, as they would be at a school's peak times, the room to complete the turn is lost and the obstruction returns.

Limited warning and minimal passing clearance at the widened B3006 junction

This clip illustrates the limited warning available to a vehicle waiting to leave Mill Lane when another vehicle turns in from the B3006. Although the proposal widens the approach to 4.8 metres, widening the carriageway does not remove the underlying conflict at the junction.

A vehicle approaching from the south on the B3006 can begin turning into Mill Lane before it becomes clearly visible to traffic waiting to emerge. In the filmed example, the interval from first sight of the approaching van to the potential conflict point is approximately 0.75 seconds.

The available passing margin is also very small. A 2014 BMW X5 is approximately 2.184 m wide including mirrors. Two X5s travelling in opposite directions would therefore occupy 4.368 m of a 4.8 m carriageway, leaving only 0.43 m of theoretical total clearance — around 0.22 m per vehicle if both were perfectly positioned.

The significance of this limited clearance is increased by the restricted warning available at the junction. If either vehicle is even slightly out of position, there is very little opportunity for either driver to correct their lateral position before the vehicles meet. A vehicle turning left into Mill Lane can appear at the conflict point extremely quickly, while a vehicle waiting to emerge may already be committed to its position on the widened section.

With such limited time and lateral margin, even a relatively small positioning error could result in abrupt braking, an avoidance manoeuvre, or a collision. The concern is greater where an HGV, refuse vehicle or other large vehicle is involved, particularly where the entering vehicle is also seeking to clear the B3006 promptly.

Any hesitation, obstruction or failed passing manoeuvre could also cause traffic to slow or queue on the B3006 itself.

Long waits and queueing remain despite the widening

Widening the first approximately 60 metres of Mill Lane does nothing to reduce the time vehicles must wait for a safe gap in fast-moving B3006 traffic. In the footage — real traffic on the B3006 — the superimposed vehicle would have had to wait around two minutes for a safe gap to turn right. As vehicles accumulate, the queue simply extends back along the widened section until it reaches the point where Mill Lane narrows again to single track.

Using a 2014 BMW X5 as a reference vehicle at 4.886 m long, and allowing roughly 1 metre between cars, only about 10 vehicles would fit within a 60 m section before the queue reached the single-track lane. At that point, vehicles trying to travel in the opposite direction would meet a stationary queue with nowhere to pass except the existing passing places, creating the potential for severe obstruction or gridlock.

This problem exists regardless of the proposed widening, because the fundamental constraint is the availability of safe gaps in the B3006 traffic. The applicant's Road Safety Audit recorded approximately 730 vehicles per hour on the B3006 during the observed periods, confirming that this is already a heavily trafficked junction.

Overtaking and excess speed at the junction

On the B3006 approach to the Mill Lane junction, vehicles frequently overtake and regularly exceed the speed limit, with local residents reporting speeds well above it. They accelerate hard in anticipation of the national speed limit on the unrestricted road just beyond the junction — so traffic is gathering speed at exactly the point where turning vehicles must pull out. A new junction generating regular turning movements — parents unfamiliar with the road, slow-moving coaches — would introduce repeated conflict with that fast through-traffic. Under pressure from fast approaching vehicles and mounting delay, drivers waiting to turn are drawn into poor gap acceptance — accepting marginal gaps and making risky decisions — and at these speeds there is little margin for error. By any reasonable measure, it is a dangerous junction.

Vulnerable road users have no safe refuge

Horse riders, walkers and cyclists may be able to avoid the main school drop-off and collection periods, but they cannot plan around couriers, food deliveries, maintenance vehicles, waste collections, servicing and other traffic arriving unpredictably throughout the day.

The footage demonstrates the problem directly: the approaching car has to stop because there is insufficient room to pass the horse safely. Neither the horse and rider nor the vehicle has a proper refuge; beyond occasional gateways or passing places, the alternatives are essentially the verge, hedge or carriageway itself. This creates an inherently constrained and potentially hazardous situation.

Additional unpredictable traffic throughout the day would increase the frequency of these encounters, affecting horse riders, walkers, cyclists and other vehicles travelling in either direction, not simply during school drop-off and collection periods.

The access route cannot carry two-way traffic

Mill Lane — the principal access route to the site — does not support two-lane traffic. A single-track lane, it has insufficient width for two vehicles to pass at peak demand; where vehicles meet, one must yield to the verge or reverse to a wider point. The footage shows that even minor increases in traffic cause immediate congestion, and that multiple vehicles arriving simultaneously cause obstruction. Concentrated school-hour movements would force this repeatedly, at the busiest times of day.

A single lorry fills Mill Lane

Between Empshott Grange and the B3006, a tipper lorry fills Mill Lane from verge to verge.

One car can wait in a lay-by. Two vehicles meeting it can block the lane completely.

There is no room for vehicles to pass, and little or no refuge for walkers, cyclists or horse riders.

Mill Lane is too narrow for repeated commercial vehicle movements

On Mill Lane, around 200 metres south of Empshott Grange, a Veolia refuse vehicle — a routine scheduled service movement — was forced to leave the carriageway entirely to allow oncoming traffic to pass. Once off the carriageway, the vehicle could not simply continue its journey and took more than 24 hours to be moved.

This is not an unusual or exceptional vehicle. It demonstrates the practical difficulty of accommodating ordinary commercial traffic on a lane of this width. Refuse vehicles, delivery vehicles, service vans, maintenance vehicles and other larger vehicles cannot always pass opposing traffic within the carriageway and may have to stop, reverse, mount the verge or wait for another vehicle to clear.

The proposed school would introduce additional daily traffic alongside these existing commercial movements. Deliveries, servicing, waste collection, contractors and larger school-related vehicles would all need to use the same constrained road network, often at the same times as staff, parents and other traffic.

The concern is therefore not simply whether an individual large vehicle can physically travel along Mill Lane. It is whether these narrow rural lanes can safely and reliably accommodate repeated commercial and school-related vehicle movements alongside increased two-way traffic, without recurring conflict, verge overrunning, reversing, obstruction — or vehicles becoming immobilised for extended periods.

When the road is blocked, there is nowhere to clear to

This is the junction that would serve the proposed school entrance. The carriageway here is bounded by hedge-bank and verge with little usable margin to either side: the roadside offers minimal recovery space, with almost nowhere to pull a stricken vehicle clear of the running lane. When the refuse vehicle seen in the previous exhibit had to be recovered, the operation took over 24 hours — police traffic management was needed at this very junction, and for that time the way past the proposed entrance was obstructed. An obstruction, breakdown or recovery at this point is not absorbed by the road; it closes it for as long as the vehicle remains.

A further vehicle leaves the carriageway at the same point

On 24 February 2026 another vehicle left the carriageway at the same constrained point on Mill Lane, again requiring recovery (the recovery vehicle is visible behind). A spot where ordinary vehicles repeatedly run off the surface is not one that can safely absorb concentrated, time-pressured school traffic.

Is there enough time to stop?

This is Mill Lane heading north towards the Church Lane junction — the point at which every vehicle leaving the proposed school would pull out. Along the approach, tree canopy, bends and gradient limit how far ahead a driver can see, and therefore how much time there is to stop. On a lane shared with walkers, riders and oncoming traffic, that margin is the difference between a near-miss and a collision — and it would be tested by concentrated school traffic at every drop-off and collection.

Three vehicles bring Church Lane to a standstill

Church Lane is narrower still. Its use is discouraged, but nothing prevents drivers from taking it — and it takes only three vehicles meeting to bring it to a complete standstill, with reversing the only way out. School traffic seeking to avoid the main junction would inevitably find its way here.

A road already carrying far more than it was built for

The B3006 is a rural B-road now carrying heavy commuter flows: traffic has risen by more than 1,000% since the early 1990s, taking it beyond the capacity it was designed for. At peak times it queues; on the morning of 3 February 2026 traffic stood nose-to-tail along its length. Adding a new traffic generator to a road already beyond its design capacity compounds a problem the network cannot absorb.

A network already at breaking point

Road closures caused by collisions on the B3006 and its connecting roads are becoming a common occurrence. On 24 February 2026 an accident closed the route, diverting traffic onto a long detour through the surrounding villages — a network with so little resilience that one incident displaces traffic across the whole area.

The danger is not theoretical. The very next day, 25 February 2026, a vehicle left the carriageway on the B3006 Selborne Road and collided with a tree, leaving the driver seriously injured; East Hants Police issued a public appeal for witnesses and dashcam footage. This is the road as it already is — before a single school vehicle is added to it.

Incidents push diverted traffic through the village

When accidents occur on the B3006, motorists often divert through the village along Mill Lane and the connecting lanes — routes with no pavements, shared with residents on foot. Past incidents already show how quickly that extra traffic overwhelms the village network. The concern is that a school would make the exceptional routine: more traffic, and the incidents that come with it, would mean more frequent diversions — until the congestion seen today only during an incident becomes a daily, peak-time condition, with people on foot exposed each time.

Passing bays present, but too small for peak flow

Mill Lane does have passing bays — but they are few and small, sized for the occasional meeting rather than the steady two-way flow a school peak would create. They only function if kept clear, and some are also used for parking, which takes them out of use altogether. A van or coach cannot fit them in any case, so larger vehicles still force oncoming traffic to stop, reverse, or mount the verge. The simultaneous arrival of three or four vehicles — routine at a school drop-off or collection — is likely to bring the lane to full obstruction.