DIBDEN Bay project bosses have been quizzed over what they would do to prevent dust clouds from billowing off their approach roads if a huge port development went ahead on Southampton Water.

As the public inquiry into the scheme for a massive container terminal between Hythe and Marchwood went into its fifth day, engineering and construction expert Kim Chandler was asked about the quality of the access road which would be used by construction traffic.

Counsel Richard Drabble, who is representing key objectors Hampshire County and New Forest District Council, was trying to establish the amount of construction traffic that would be going in and out of the site and its impact on the area.

With a temporary access road planned while work was being done on the permanent road, he asked what kind of road would be laid for all the earthworks and early construction traffic. He was told by Mr Candler: "Essentially, it will be a construction road with some sort of gravel finish."

But when Mr Drabble asked what provision - such as wheel-washing facilities - would be provided to minimise dust, Mr Candler said: "I haven't given it consideration from that point of view. A contractor will want water on the site."

Mr Drabble then stressed: "What we don't want is a contractor who says 'best practicable means doesn't apply because we don't have water on the site."

At that point, Mr Drabble indicated that the water and the wheel-washing facilities should be viable."

Mr Drabble also stressed the need to consider organising the timing of the traffic so it did not pour on to the busy A326 past the Bay. The inquiry had heard that quite a lot of the materials for the work would be delivered to a purpose-build jetty by boat, including the sheet metal for the pile-driving of the sea wall.

On the question of what would happen to the estimated 13 million cubic metres of silt, sludge and gravel produced by the dredging operations, the inquiry heard that about a million would be laid on the surface of marshland between Hythe and Fawley Refinery.

A considerable amount would be gravel which would be used for the building of the port and the remainder, around nine million cubic metres, would be disposed of in other ways, probably in the disposal area off the Nab Tower to the east of the Isle of Wight.

Earlier, Mr Candler had outlined the work which would be needed to complete the project. This includes the doubling of the mound between the Bay and Hythe Marina, a 1,040 metres quay wall in the first phase, re-shaping the levels of the land, improving the substance of the soil, dredging for the huge container berths, terminal buildings, rail sidings, access road and A326 junction work and the provision of bridges and railway sidings.