LONG-running efforts to ban lorries from thundering through a Hampshire community have been dealt a severe blow by county bosses.

Villagers in Marchwood have been fighting for years for restrictions on HGVs travelling along their residential roads.

They want to see a total ban on lorries from Marchwood Industrial Estate using Hythe Road. Instead, residents want them all to be forced to use Jacobs Gutter Lane to get to the A326.

However, following a day-long survey conducted last summer, traffic management officers have just written to Marchwood Parish Council to report their conclusion that no action against the lorries is needed.

Community leaders have pledged to continue fighting for lorry restrictions.

Councillor David Harrison, who represents Totton South and Marchwood at Hampshire County Council, said: "I'm already furious that it has taken county officers almost a year to produce a report.

"It is questionable whether a single day survey undertaken during the summer holiday period provides reliable evidence on which to base conclusions.

"For my part, I still feel strongly that we need, wherever possible, to ban lorry traffic from Hythe Road. The bypass was built for this purpose and should be used. Large commercial vehicles and schoolchildren do not mix."

Councillor Brian Dash, county councillor for Hythe and Dibden, said: "Doing nothing is not an acceptable option. There are scenes of absolute chaos in Hythe Road when children are going to and from school with lorries passing parked cars, sometimes mounting pavements."

The county council's lorry survey recorded 1,155 HGVs in one day at four places in Marchwood. They counted 28 at Bury Road, 902 at Normandy Way near the Normandy Way roundabout, 114 at Normandy Way near its junction with Cracknore Hard Lane and 111 in Hythe Road outside The Pilgrim Inn.

On that day, 90 per cent of lorries used Jacobs Gutter Lane rather than Hythe Road.

Martin Wiltshire, assistant area manager of the county's traffic management group, said: "The survey indicates that the vast majority of traffic heading towards or leaving Marchwood does so via Jacobs Gutter Lane, which leads directly to the strategic road network."

He said most of the lorries using Hythe Road were travelling to locations within Marchwood and added: "Serious consideration has been given to a lorry restriction on Hythe Road but unfortunately there is no easy or straightforward solution to this problem and such a proposal may create other problems."