THE £27m Whitehill and Bordon relief road was officially opened to traffic on Monday.

Rob Humby, Hampshire County Council’s executive member for the environment and transport, and Dave Axam, who heads the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership, marked the occasion by cutting a red ribbon on the section by the Future Skills Centre.

The centre on Hudson Road, Bordon, hosted a reception for 60 people involved in the project, which took three years to design and another three to build.

An exhibition of photographs and key information was on display, along with a video showing an aerial view of the route and time-lapse photography showing its development from bare earth to the finished road.

The new road starts to the north of Bordon, branching off from the original A325 at a roundabout and passing through the former Ministry of Defence area to the west of the town before reconnecting with the A325 at a junction with Petersfield Road, Liphook Road and Firgrove Road in the south of Whitehill.

Although the road has partly been built to reduce the amount of traffic passing through Whitehill and Bordon in preparation for its new town centre, it is not just a bypass. There are three junctions along the route giving access to the new housing and employment areas being created as part of the regeneration and expansion of the town.

The new section is classified as part of the A325 to encourage passing traffic – especially lorries – to go round the new town centre. The old part of the A325 has been declassified so it can be improved to make it more suitable for local traffic, including having better crossing points for pedestrians and cyclists.

In a speech before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Cllr Humby said: “I’m delighted to be here this morning for the opening of a relief road for Whitehill and Bordon. It is vital to the successful regeneration of Whitehill and Bordon and is a major milestone on the way to making it a vibrant place to live and work. It was a long process to get here and we don’t open roads very often, so this is a significant day for all of us.

“The big thing here has been partnership, with the various councils working with Enterprise M3, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, the Whitehill and Bordon Regeneration Company and Homes England.”

Cllr Humby thanked the contractors Knights Brown, which completed phase one, the northern section, for £7m, and Skanska and Mildren Construction, which took over phase two, the southern part, following a delay caused by the liquidation of original contractor Carillion in January last year, and finished it at a cost of £20m.

He praised East Hampshire district councillor Ferris Cowper, the Whitehill & Bordon portfolio holder, as “instrumental in bringing it all together”, and client project manager Allen Harris, whom he said “played an immense role”.

Mr Humby spoke of efforts to improve the environment, including five fauna tunnels and a bat ‘hop-over’ to aid wildlife. Some 145,000 tonnes of excavated material was used elsewhere on the site, while 13,000 native trees and 56,000 square metres of species-rich acidic grassland were planted.

Mr Humby said: “I’d like to thank the community for their patience in allowing us to do it quickly and efficiently. It’s been great to pull this together with all our partners, and I look forward to the success of the whole development.”

In his speech, Mr Axam explained the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership, which bids for government funding to drive economic growth, had invested £17.5m in the road as part of a £28.5m contribution to the regeneration project. He said: “The relief road reduces congestion but it also enables the development of the area for economic growth and housing.”

Cllr Cowper said the new road would make a “colossal difference”, county council chief executive John Coughlan said it would lead to a “radical overhaul” of the town, Whitehill mayor Leslie Webber said residents “can see tangible things happening” and East Hampshire’s Whitehill (Walldown) councillor Adam Carew said it was “a very exciting day for Whitehill and Bordon.”