LOVE LANE residents say plans for a new car park that are expected to be approved will cause chaos along the narrow dead-end lane.

At its meeting on January 9 at 6pm, East Hampshire District Council’s planning committee is expected to approve the plans by Churcher’s College to create a car park with an exit into the lane.

The car park will allow construction traffic to come and go more easily as work on the Goodfield Centre in the school continues, but once that is finished it is expected the car park will remain.

But residents say construction lorries are already making their lives a misery, and that once the car park is in full use it will put pedestrians, especially children heading for nearby Herne Junior School, at risk.

They also claim planners allowed the use of Love Lane, as the busy Ramshill entrance to the college virtually gridlocks the road when the school day begins and ends.

Resident Sarah Morris said: “I believe the use of Love Lane was encouraged to reduce Ramshill traffic. The sneaky unbundling of the Goodfield Centre application into two separate full applications, one for this car park, has enabled the college to manipulate the process.”