TRAFFIC misery in north Dorset villages will be on the agenda at a top level meeting in Bristol today.

Robert Walter MP will lobby officials from the Government Office of the South West on the future of the A350 and north-south road links through the county.

Charlton Marshall and Stourpaine have been campaigning for a bypass for decades. It was pencilled in only to be axed when the government did a U-turn on road-building programmes.

Residents of Cann and Melbury Abbas on the C 13 also complain that heavy traffic is killing off their villages.

Mr Walter says he has been determined to convince the government of the need to relieve their misery since he was elected in 1997.

The GOSW had commissioned a survey of the whole roads picture between the M4 and the South Coast but the survey ignored the needs of Dorset, concentrating on Bath and Wiltshire, he said.

Following his protests that this was illogical and unfair, Dorset's councils and key transport groups have now been consulted.

Before the meeting Mr Walter said: "I am convinced the only way to relieve the misery of those who live in the A350 corridor is to build the upgraded roads and bypasses that were abandoned in 1997.

"We had a scheme, although too grand in places, that would have taken the ever-increasing north-south traffic out of the villages.

"I want to get a clear commitment from the government that Dorset can now work on a new scheme bypassing Spetisbury, Charlton Marshall and Melbury Abbas."