There is still hope a village could get a bypass to relieve its traffic problems.

Members of the Chideock Bypass Working Group say the village needs a ‘permanent solution’ to its traffic problems and remain ‘very hopeful’ a bypass will yet be included in Highways England’s Strategic Road Network (SRN).

In order to set investment in the SRN, the government publishes a multi-year Road Investment Strategy (RIS). The second RIS (RIS2) will cover the financial years 2020/21 to 2024/25.

The working group, which submitted an application to Highways England for consideration in its SRN scheme, had been due to find out whether it had been successful in its RIS2 bid later this year, however, this has been rescheduled for summer 2019.

Group chairman, Anna Dunn, said: "We are, of course, still hopeful that the submission we made as part of HE's RIS2 public consultation may influence their budget spending for 2020-2025."

In its submission to Highways England, the group states: 'The A35 through Chideock was designed for the horse and cart and today, nobody would consider building such a road through a village main street closely lined with homes where the only access is via hills of 12 per cent and 15 per cent gradients. Yet this is precisely the current status of Chideock except that road no longer carries horse and cart but now carries more than 16,000 vehicles per day.

'Without doubt the traffic is the major cause of all the other problems faced by Chideock residents. Remove the traffic and all the other problems go away.'

There has been a longstanding campaign to build a bypass around Chideock.

Plans were approved in 1993 but were cancelled, along with several other bypass projects, in November 1996 for economic reasons and it was revoked by Act of Parliament in 1999.

The working group aims to revive the agreed proposals and take action to build a bypass of the A35 running through the village which, it believes, will ease congestion. It hopes to divert the A35 trunk road away from the centre of village, claiming it could improve the environment and road safety in the area.

The group has launched a new survey on its website seeking people’s views.

For more information, and to share your views, visit chideockbypass.co.uk