HAMPTON -- Work on restoring a one-way spur at the intersection of Park Avenue and Winnacunnet Road should begin in the next few weeks.

Town Manager James Barrington said the Winnacunnet Cooperative School Board recently informed him it will be done by the end of August.

"I understand the school is just about ready to get started on that," Barrington said. "The reason for the delay is we were trying to relocate the tree down there. I guess that has been contracted, and the school is going to pay the cost to relocate it."

Barrington said the town wanted to save the tree because it was planted by a group of Hampton Academy students in memory of the 9/11 victims.

"We didn't want it just to be bulldozed," Barrington said. "We wanted to move it to an appropriate place. The latest plan is that we are going to move the tree to the Five Corners Park and re-establish it there."

The Winnacunnet School Board has hired Durell Paving Inc., to restore the spur road.

Restoring a one-way spur was one of several recommendations made by traffic engineer Stephen Pernaw of Pernaw Engineers.

The Winnacunnet Cooperative School Board voted to implement all of Pernaw's recommendations as part of an agreement signed between selectmen and the School Board to end a lawsuit the school filed last October against the town.

The School Board filed legal action after selectmen voted to restore the spur on Park Avenue and close the school's new entrance for safety reasons because of the traffic.

Selectmen were also upset the school never received approval at Town Meeting to bury the spur.