THE obsession of the “political classes” with regulation or nonregulation, of the press has not troubled my email inbox very much in the last couple of weeks despite how swiftly events have moved.

My own prejudice is that the frightful abuses that have been uncovered were already against the law, people have gone to prison as a consequence and more may do so shortly.

Any system we devise to try to stamp out these abuses needs to take account of the fact that liberty cannot be taken for granted.

We may not fear press regulation now, when the political establishment and all the mainstream political parties believe in transparent government and freedom of speech.

The system we design however, may have to function in a very different environment, when government might be much less inclined to such scrutiny. We have to be vigilant to ensure that powers we might be untroubled to grant to a regulatory body in today’s benign regime, might be used in the future to silence legitimate exposure and criticism.

What has filled my inbox, has been a correspondence about the A31 prompted by another tragic death – this time a young woman whose whole life lay ahead pf her.

Ever since I have represented the New Forest I have received a stream of representations about the A31 as it approaches Ringwood from the east. When the Highways Agency closed off the junctions that existed between Picket Post and Ringwood, the effect was to make the A31 an extension of the M27 and to speed up the traffic accordingly.

So, it came as no surprise last week when statistics revealed that the A31 clocked-up one of the highest scores for speeding, including one at 137mph.The speed causes two problems: firstly it significantly increases the noise nuisance on a road which predates modern, much more effective sound absorbing surfaces.

Secondly, I believe that it makes it much more difficult to safely manoeuvre into the right lane given the hazards presented by the relatively short slip roads at virtually all the junctions and the dangers from traffic entering from West Street and the Texaco Garage, all just when traffic has to accommodate vehicles switching lanes into the right stream for Verwood or Matchams, the Spur Road or Ashley Heath, or staying on the A31. It seems to me that doing all this at a lower speed would be safer.

Towards the end of last year Ringwood Town Council produced an excellent document suggesting a number of modest and inexpensive improvements, form better signs to a 50mph limit from Picket Post.

We had a meeting with the Highways Agency just before Christmas but we made little progress. The agency takes the view (rather perversely) that there simply haven’t been enough accidents to justify a reduction in the speed limit and that, of the accidents we have had, speed has not been the principal or a significant cause.

They point out that many accidents have occurred when the sheer volume of traffic has reduced speeds below 50.

I still think speed reduction is a sensible precaution on a road that already has such a limit west of Ringwood. Starting that limit a mile and a half to the east is hardly a radical proposal and it is certainly worth a try.

Our next step is to see if we can get a meeting with the minister, and persuade him.