Petersfield Roadworks: A3 Nights End Friday, Tilmore Shuts

The A3 northbound resurfacing is nearly done. National Highways’ closure report for the nights of 22 to 28 September books the Longmoor closure on four nights only, Tuesday to Friday. The night of Friday 25 September is the last one. After that the report is empty of resurfacing closures until the southbound work starts on Friday 9 October.

Two closures land inside the district this week. The A272 at Langrish shuts for a day on Thursday 24 September. Tilmore Road in Petersfield shuts for a day on Friday 25 September. Both are single-day pole replacements by the same contractor.

The longest closure in the district is not on any works programme. Farnham Road in Alton has been shut since 18 September under an emergency order, with no signed alternative route and up to 21 days on the clock.

This page tracks the Petersfield roadworks and closures that actually affect the drive in and out, from the A3 down to a single village lane. It is rebuilt from the orders themselves every time it is updated.

Checked against National Highways’ seven day closure report covering 22 to 28 September, its Hindhead Tunnel scheme page, and Hampshire County Council’s East Hampshire public notices, all read on 23 September 2026.

What is closed on the A3 this week

The resurfacing scheme, which National Highways books as “A3 both directions Hogs Back to Longmoor”, closes two sections northbound each night from 9pm to 6am:

• A3 northbound at Longmoor, the carriageway between the exit and entry slip roads, on the nights of 22, 23, 24 and 25 September.
• A3 northbound, Hazel Grove to Milford, on the same four nights.

The second closure has moved north again. A fortnight ago the report ran it from Griggs Green to Thursley, then from Hazel Grove to Thursley, and it now reaches Milford. The Liphook end has been out of it since the middle of the month.

Neither closure appears on the nights of Saturday 26, Sunday 27 or Monday 28 September. That matches the scheme page, which ends the northbound work at 6am on Saturday 26 September.

Four other A3 closures in the same report are not part of the resurfacing:

• A3 southbound at Weston, both the exit and the entry slip road, on the night of Friday 25 September, 9pm to 6am, for maintenance. National Highways does not say where Weston is. The slip roads were created by a 1987 order covering the Ham Barn to Petersfield section, which puts them on the Petersfield stretch of the road.
• A3 southbound, Liphook Services, on the night of Tuesday 22 September, 10pm to 6am, for maintenance. The services and a lane close, not the carriageway.
• A3 southbound, Stoke to the Hog’s Back, on the nights of 22 and 23 September, for survey work, and the southbound Wisley exit slip on the nights of 23, 24 and 25 September for urgent signage works. Both are well north of the district.
• On the night of Monday 28 September, the first southbound job appears at our end of the road: the A3 southbound Longmoor exit slip closes, 9pm to 6am, for maintenance. The northbound Hazel Grove exit slip closes the same night for drainage, and the northbound carriageway from Dennis to Stoke at Guildford closes for structures work.

The A3 is open in both directions during the day throughout. Longmoor is about five miles north of Petersfield, so the town’s own junctions and the road south towards Havant and Portsmouth are not part of the resurfacing closures.

Road closures now and in the next fortnight

Every entry below comes from the temporary closure order itself, not from a works sign. Hampshire publishes an order duration of six months as standard. The figure that matters is the shorter expected length in brackets, which is the one used here.

Four of those need reading twice.

• Farnham Road in Alton is the serious one. It was closed on 18 September under section 14(2) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act, the power the county uses when a road has to shut “without delay due to the likelihood of danger to the public or the risk of serious damage to the road”. The notice gives the closed section as Farnham Road between the Farnham Road off-slip at Bentley and the junction with Montecchio Way, allows up to 21 days, and states the alternative route as “N/A”. It does not say what the problem is. Twenty-one days from 18 September runs to 8 October.
• Tilmore Road is the only closure inside Petersfield itself. It shuts between Station Road and Tilmore Gardens for a single day on 25 September. The signed alternative is Tilmore Gardens, Reservoir Lane, Kingsfernsden Lane, Ramshill, College Street and Station Road, which is a long way round for anyone crossing the railway on foot or by car.
• The A272 closure at Langrish is the disruptive one. It takes out the main road west towards Winchester between Bordean Lane and The Green for a day on 24 September. The county’s signed diversion is the A272, A32, A27, A3 and Winchester Road, a detour of well over twenty miles for a pole replacement.
• Pookles Lane at Worldham has no alternative route either, and its order allows nine days of round the clock closure from 5 October while Waterlink renews a water supply pipe.

What has come off the list since last week

Five closures we carried on 13 September have now run past the length their own orders allowed, and the county has published no extension for any of them. They should be open, though an order that runs for six months gives the contractor room to overrun.

• Andlers Ash Road, Liss. Phase two ran to 18 September.
• Village Street, Bentworth. Up to three nights from 14 September.
• Oxenbourne Lane, East Meon. A single day on 22 September.
• The Cross, Petersfield. Up to three days of duct works from 17 August, for the same contractor now working across the district.
• Beech bridleway 704. Closed from 11 to 30 September, but the county’s own notice expected the surfacing to be finished by 18 September.

Westbrooke Road in Alton is the one to watch. Nineteen days from 7 September runs out on about 25 September, and it has been shut around the clock from Lenten Street to a point 200 metres south while Clancy replaces the gas mains. The alternative is Ackender Road and Lenten Street. With Farnham Road shut at the other end of the town under an emergency order, Alton is carrying two closures at once.

Footpaths and byways

• Part of Clanfield byway 702 is newly closed. The county shut it on 21 September under the emergency power, then made an order running from 25 September to 21 March 2027, for a path improvement project. That is a six month closure of a byway open to all traffic, and it is the longest rights of way closure now live in the district.
• Part of East Meon BOAT 42 stays closed until 9 October for surface and drainage improvements.
• Part of East Meon footpath 34 has been extended. The original closure covered clearance of dead and dying ash trees; the extension runs from 17 August for three months, so into the middle of November, and it was directed by the Secretary of State for Transport rather than granted by the county.

Two proposals you can still object to

Both notices went up on 18 September and both close on Friday 9 October.

• Four road humps on Heath Road East and Pulens Lane, Petersfield. Raised tables 75mm high on the approaches to the Durford Road crossroads, the statutory step before a £1.4m safety scheme starts this autumn. Objections in writing quoting reference A2178/JH. We have written this one up in full: four road humps for Pulens Lane.
• A 30mph limit on Dell Piece East and the B2149 Havant Road at Horndean and Clanfield, replacing the national speed limit on 536 metres of Havant Road and 130 metres of Dell Piece East, with 40mph for a further 320 metres south of Pyle Lane. Objections quoting reference C895/KK.

What is closing this autumn

National Highways is part-way through the first resurfacing of the Hindhead Tunnel since 2011, along with a new intelligent lighting system, replacement LED road studs and new high friction surfacing on the approaches.

The scheme page has not been updated since 2 September. It gives the northbound work as 7 to 26 September after a single opening night on 1 September, and the southbound closures as Friday 9 to Friday 30 October, where an earlier published date was 8 November. It is still written as one closure from Longmoor junction to the Hog’s Back, which is not how the closure report has described it for two weeks. Where the two disagree, the report is the one that says what is actually shut tonight.

National Highways puts the diversion at roughly ten extra miles. For the southbound phase it routes traffic off at the Hog’s Back, along the A31 past Farnham to the roundabout in Alton, onto the B3004 towards Sleaford, then right onto the A325 and south to Longmoor. That is the northbound diversion in reverse, and it means three more weeks of long-distance night traffic on the A325 through Whitehill and Bordon and on the B3004 into Alton, on roads that were not built for it.

Residents at Warren Park are escorted through the works when they need to reach their properties, and emergency services have access at all times.

The roads that matter here, closure or no closure

Petersfield is a road junction as much as a town, and five routes do the work:

• The A3 is the spine. Dual carriageway, grade separated, and the reason Petersfield is an hour from London and half an hour from Portsmouth. It is also the road that carries other people’s problems into the district.
• The A272 runs east to west through the town, Winchester one way and Midhurst and Petworth the other. Single carriageway, with no realistic alternative, and National Highways has used it before as a signed diversion into Petersfield during A3 and A31 closures.
• The A325 runs north from the Longmoor junction through Whitehill and Bordon to Farnham. It is the designated A3 diversion and also the main road for the Whitehill and Bordon new town.
• The A32 heads south west from Alton down the Meon Valley to Fareham, the useful route to the M27 that avoids the A3.
• The B2070, the old A3 through Liss, Liphook and Griggs Green, is the local parallel road. It is the one that fills up first when the A3 stops.

Parking in Petersfield

Twelve days after the work was due to finish, the council still has not said whether Central car park is done. East Hampshire District Council’s £100,000 scheme allowed seven working days from 3 September for the town’s largest car park, which holds 418 of the 844 council spaces in Petersfield. That period ended on Friday 11 September. Nothing has appeared since on the council’s news page or its car parking page, and the dates were weather permitting, so check the boards on site before you commit to it. Festival Hall and Swan Street were done in late August. Only Castle Yard, with 57 spaces, was left alone.

The Swan Street footpath closure is still on. The path running east from Charles Street into the car park closed on 21 September for up to five days, around the clock, while Stonbury replaces bollards. The signed way round is Charles Street and Swan Street. The order covers the footpath, not the car park itself.

The council raised its tariffs on 1 April 2026 under an order dated 27 February 2026. Charges apply Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. The Sunday position differs by car park, which is the detail most people get wrong.

Two things follow from that table. Festival Hall is the cheapest long stay in Petersfield: £5.80 for nine hours and £9.00 all day, against £9.00 and £10.20 at Castle Yard and Swan Street. And Central and The Causeway are short stay only, capped at three hours, so they are no use for a working day.

On Sundays, Castle Yard and Festival Hall are free. Swan Street still charges its full weekday tariff, and Central and The Causeway charge £2.10 for two hours or £2.90 for three. If you drive into Petersfield on a Sunday and park in the wrong one, you pay for something the council is giving away 200 metres away.

In Alton, the Sunday split works the same way: Church Street, Vicarage Hill, Victoria Road and Rogers Court are free, while Turk Street, Lady Place, Bank, Mount Pleasant and Manor Road charge £1.50 for any length of stay between 10am and 4pm.

For commuters, the station car park is a separate system again: £9.70 for a peak day, £4.90 off-peak, or £1,354 a year across its 154 spaces.

How to check what is closed today

• National Highways covers the A3 and the Hindhead Tunnel. Its road closure report is a spreadsheet listing the next seven nights, junction by junction, and it is republished twice a day on working days.
• Hampshire County Council is the highway authority for everything else: the A272, the A325, the B2070 and every town street. Filter its public notices to East Hampshire and the live temporary closure orders are on the first page.
• Read the duration of order paragraph, not the notice’s start and end dates. The header dates are the advertising window. The order itself usually runs six months, with a much shorter expected working period in brackets.
• An emergency closure under section 14(2), like Farnham Road in Alton, is different again. It goes up after the road has already shut, it does not have to name a reason, and it does not have to offer a diversion.
• Check the road named in the body, not the heading. Hampshire’s notice for Four Marks was headed “Willis Lane” while the order closed Hammers Lane.
• Closure dates on trunk roads change at short notice, and National Highways says so explicitly. A published date is a plan, not a promise.

Frequently asked questions

What roads are closed in Petersfield right now?

Nothing in the town centre. The Swan Street car park footpath is shut until about 25 September. Tilmore Road closes for one day on 25 September. In the wider district, Farnham Road in Alton has been shut since 18 September under an emergency order with no alternative route, and Westbrooke Road in Alton is shut around the clock until about 25 September.

Is the A3 closed near Petersfield?

Overnight, yes, but only northbound, only north of the town, and only until Friday. The northbound carriageway closes at Longmoor and from Hazel Grove to Milford on the nights of 22, 23, 24 and 25 September, 9pm to 6am. The night of Friday 25 September is the last one: the scheme ends at 6am on Saturday 26 September. Southbound closures between the Hog’s Back and Longmoor follow from 9 to 30 October. The A3 south of Longmoor, including the Petersfield junctions, stays open, and the road is open in both directions during the day.

When does the A3 close southbound?

Friday 9 October to Friday 30 October, overnight, 9pm to 6am, between the Hog’s Back and the Longmoor junction. Before that, the southbound Longmoor exit slip closes on its own on the night of Monday 28 September for maintenance.

What is the diversion when the Hindhead Tunnel closes?

Northbound, leave the A3 at Longmoor, take the A325 north through Whitehill and Bordon, then the B3004 to Alton and the A31 east past Farnham to the Hog’s Back. Southbound is that route in reverse: off at the Hog’s Back, A31 past Farnham to the roundabout in Alton, B3004 towards Sleaford, then the A325 south to Longmoor. National Highways puts it at about ten extra miles.

Where can I park free in Petersfield?

Castle Yard and the Festival Hall car park are free on Sundays, between 10am and 4pm. There is no free council parking in Petersfield on Monday to Saturday.

What is the cheapest all-day car park in Petersfield?

Festival Hall, at £9.00 for a day and £5.80 for nine hours. Castle Yard and Swan Street both charge £10.20 all day and £9.00 for nine hours.

Is Central car park open after the resurfacing?

The council allowed seven working days from 3 September, which ran to Friday 11 September, for Central, the last of the five car parks in its £100,000 resurfacing scheme. Twelve days later it has still published nothing to say the work finished, and the dates were weather permitting, so check the notice boards on site.

Related

• Four road humps for Pulens Lane, the £1.4m safety scheme now at its statutory notice stage, with the objection deadline and how to use it.
• Petersfield trains to London, the alternative when the A3 is shut, with station car park prices.
• Petersfield planning news: the town centre site allocations that include a rebuilt Festival Hall car park.
• Things to do in Petersfield, with parking notes for the ones you drive to.

Sources

• National Highways seven day closure report, the report covering the nights of 22 to 28 September 2026, downloaded on 23 September, for the A3 northbound Longmoor and Hazel Grove to Milford closures, the southbound Weston slip roads, Liphook Services, Stoke to Hog’s Back, Wisley, the Monday 28 September Longmoor southbound exit slip, the Hazel Grove northbound exit slip and the Dennis to Stoke closure.
• National Highways, Hindhead Tunnel, scheme update of 2 September 2026, read on 23 September 2026, for the resurfacing and lighting works, the 7 to 26 September northbound and 9 to 30 October southbound dates, both diversion routes and the Warren Park access arrangement.
• The London to Portsmouth Trunk Road A3 (Ham Barn to Petersfield Section Slip Roads) Order 1987 for the Weston southbound slip roads.
• Hampshire County Council public notices, East Hampshire for every temporary closure order named here: Farnham Road, Alton, Westbrooke Road, Alton, Swan Street car park footpath, Petersfield, A272 Winchester Road, Langrish, Tilmore Road, Petersfield, Smithy Lane, Headley, Pookles Lane, Worldham, Andlers Ash Road, Liss, Village Street, Bentworth, Oxenbourne Lane, East Meon, The Cross, Petersfield and Willis Lane, Four Marks. All read on 23 September 2026.
• Rights of way orders, same register: Clanfield BOAT 702, Beech bridleway 704, East Meon BOAT 42 and the East Meon footpath 34 extension.
• Traffic order proposals open for objection to 9 October 2026: road humps in Heath Road East and Pulens Lane, Petersfield (reference A2178/JH) and a 30mph limit on Dell Piece East and the B2149 Havant Road (reference C895/KK).
• East Hampshire District Council, car park line maintenance and repairs, news release of 24 August 2026, for the £100,000 scheme and the 3 to 11 September dates at Central car park. The council’s news index and its car parking page carried nothing further on it when checked on 23 September 2026.
• East Hampshire District Council, Off-Street Parking Places (Variation) Order 2026, dated 27 February 2026, for every Petersfield and Alton tariff, the charging hours and the Sunday exemptions.
• South Western Railway, Petersfield station for the station car park tariff and space count.

Roadworks change week to week and trunk road closures move at short notice. Confirm against National Highways and Hampshire County Council before you travel, and check the tariff on the machine before you pay.