A PETITION against a controversial traffic flow order in Winchester is gathering strength.

About 400 people have signed the petition against the reversal of flow in Parchment Street.

City bosses will run a questionnaire in the next few weeks asking people what they think of the changes.

Traders in the street say since the traffic flow was reversed last November, giving vehicle access from St George's Street to North Walls, trade has suffered and congestion

has increased in other parts of the city.

Several shops have joined forces and launched the petition calling for the 18-month experimental order to be ended immediately. About 400 traders, residents and members of the public have added their name to the campaign.

Transport chiefs voted to change the traffic flow last March, prompted by complaints from residents that the road was used as a rat-run by more than 3,000 drivers a day causing noise and pollution.

The city council is currently putting together a questionnaire about the flow reversal which will be sent out later this month.

Lawson Bell, of Bell Fine Arts in Parchment Street, who helped launch the petition said: "I am confident we will change Parchment Street

back, hopefully before the end of the year."

The city council introduced the changes because it felt that residents of Parchment Street were having their lives blighted by congestion, air and noise pollution.

Several thousands cars a day use Parchment Street as a rat-run to cut out a long trip around the city centre via Friarsgate.

Although the air pollution problem in Parchment Street has eased, critics of the changes say it has simply moved the problem elsewhere.

Winchester city centre is currently an Air Quality Management Area and the council has said it must take steps to reduce the levels of nitrogen dioxide.