The man with the unenviable task of sorting out Winchester's traffic problems is hanging up his hard hat.

But David Marklew (58), Winchester City Council's chief engineer, says that after 28 years with the poisoned chalice he has learnt to take criticism on the chin.

Even his first scheme provoked huge controversy, he recalled, as he looked back on nearly three decades of changes in the city.

"When I came to Winchester the High Street had just been closed to traffic," he said.

"It was just the tarmac road that people were walking on, feeling rather strange. So my first job was to design a pavement for the High Street.

"The closure was highly controversial - people thought they would lose passing trade and their businesses would suffer. People were saying the same old stories we get for every project now.

"But if I said let's allow traffic back on the High Street now, there would be uproar."

Mr Marklew has been involved in most of the key city centre developments over the past 28 years - including the M3 extension, securing a contract for the building of The Brooks shopping centre, and constructing the River Park Leisure Centre.

"All the work on the M3 was fascinating and very complicated. I spent over 100 days at the motorway inquiry, putting forward the council's case for constructing a tunnel under St Catherine's Hill.

"It was a new experience for me, and that was an interesting time," he said.

In the 1970s Mr Marklew headed off plans for an inner ring road in Winchester, which he said would have destroyed over 200 homes.

Mr Marklew said when he started in Winchester he could never have imagined the impact that cars would have.

"Traffic and parking have been major social and political issues throughout my career. I recall from the 70s the every-day long queues for the central car park, long delays on the one-way system and horrendous queues on the bypass.

"In 30 years traffic has more than doubled, yet we have managed to prevent gridlock, we have doubled the amount of parking space and have kept through traffic out of the city centre."

Parking has been the millstone around his neck, he says, and he sees park and ride as the only viable way to cope with demand in the future.

"The seemingly endless debate about the expansion of park and ride has been very frustrating and I anticipate that future proposals will be equally drawn out.

"I hope it will go ahead, though, because I am sure it will help maintain the economy of Winchester without saturating the place with cars."

He thought it unlikely that Winchester would ever become a completely car-free zone.

In retirement, Mr Marklew will not be leaving the problems of parking behind.

Last year he was elected president to the British Parking Association, and he is also a representative on the European Parking Association Board.

Other than this, he is looking forward to forgetting the stresses of the job, furthering his interests as an amateur historian and working on his classic cars. He is the new secretary of the Winchester branch of The MG Owner's Club.

"I look back on my time with the council with pride, with a real sense of achievement and with the satisfaction of having contributed to improving the quality of life in the city.

"But it is a fairly stressful job and to stop doing it is going to be quite a relief," he said.