COUNCILS and environmental groups have warned that a new dock at Dibden Bay will have a major knock-on effect on roads right out through the countryside of Hampshire and Wiltshire.

The public inquiry in Southampton into Associated British Ports' plans for a container terminal at Dibden Bay was yesterday told that towns and cities including Romsey and Salisbury could face more lorries and more congestion.

Test Valley Borough Council planning officer David Bibby said his council did not object in principle to the scheme, but "has serious concerns regarding the potential implications for Test Valley and its residents which may result".

As well as being worried about the effect the dock would have on salmon in the River Test, which runs through its district, he said the council was calling for measures to keep the heavy goods vehicles to the major roads on the strategic road network.

The A3057 between Romsey and Stockbridge, he said, was so narrow in places that "HGVs cannot pass each other and cars are only able to pass an HGV if one of them is stationary".

Mr Bibby asked for Test Valley to be consulted on the details of a proposed lorry-routing agreement and freight quality partnership and was given an assurance that it would be.

Salisbury's fears were summed up in a joint statement by the city's Friends of the Earth and Salisbury Transport 2000.

It warned of predictions of an extra 204 HGVs per 24-hour day on the A36.

The groups were also disappointed that none of the container freight for the south-west and South Wales was likely to go by rail.

Although plans for a Salisbury Bypass were cancelled in 1997, it suggested that the extra traffic in and around Salisbury was "likely to be used as ammunition by local authorities to justify further environmentally destructive road schemes around Salisbury and along the A36 corridor."

The village of Godshill also voiced its opposition. Speaking for the parish council, Councillor Ann Cakebread suggested that all hauliers could see was that the minor roads offered short cuts and avoided traffic jams on designated lorry routes.

She added: "It is horrible to see a vast lorry at a full 40mph passing within a couple of yards of a cottage built in the 16th century. The road surface is inadequate to bear the weight of 40-tonne trucks, so it gives way and becomes very bumpy."

The inquiry resumes on Tuesday.