A £500,000 proposal to upgrade and improve Lavant Street in Petersfield looks unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.

A section of the work has been done, but Hampshire County Council (HCC) says it hasn’t enough money to do the work, and it will only get done when there is money available.

Now the proposed work along the rest of the street, described as part of the ‘spine of the town’ or ‘a gateway entrance to the South Down National Park’ is in doubt.

Stage one of the works from Petersfield station forecourt to the Lavant Street crossroads with Charles Street, attracted £30,000 of outside funding, and was completed last year by HCC contractors.

Lavant Street is part of the brief of the Town Centre Development Committee, which has members from Petersfield Town Council, East Hampshire District Council, Hampshire County Council and South Downs National Park Authority.

The committee was formed last Spring after a district council announcement that it was going to chop down the trees on Petersfield Square was stopped in its tracks by campaigners.

It was decided that rather than just decide the fate of the trees, a wider ranging plan for the whole of the town centre was needed, and nothing should be done until that was in place.

After the committee’s last meeting on Wednesday, January 11, co-chairman Tony Struthers of the Petersfield Society said progress was slow.

He said: “It was a good meeting, but at the moment it is all just proposals, so there’s not much to say.

“”The rest of the work in Lavant Street will happen at some point in the future, but we don’t know when, it’s up to Hampshire County Council to set a date.”

He went onto say that he expected the future of the two elm trees in The Square could be decided this year, but said their fate was intertwined with producing a wider plan for the town centre.

He also said that one of the hold ups in moving forward at a faster pace was the busy schedule of HCCs Highways Department.

At a separate meeting a few days earlier of the Petersfield Development Committee of which Mr Struthers is a member, it was noted that it was hard to confirm Highways Department experts for meetings.

Mr Struthers said: “It seems to be how they operate, however they did attend the January 1 meeting.”

He added that the Highways team has to get actively involved at some point if the town centre plan is to progress at a reasonable pace, but said team members weren’t “readily” available.