Representation by Richardson Family (Richardson Family )
- Date submitted
- 4 September 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
DCO A66 Trans-Pennine September 2022 Objection – Richardson Further to our previous letter of objections to the November and February consultation. Please find below further objections following the submission of the DCO for the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Project. • 1 - Access: The farms current access is only utilized by the Richardson’s and their subsequent business. However, the proposed farm access from the A66 will be available to a number of parties including the neighboring landowners and provides a potential access point to Café Sixty Six. Although it is understood that the café does in fact have its own access point. It is our belief that road users will still potentially use the Richardson’s access through miss understanding of the Cafés entrance, especially those travelling east to west. This also emphasises the point of safety on the road with potential movement of a number of vehicles including large agricultural machinery, livestock and pedestrians. Furthermore, neighboring landowners, access onto Richardson’s access way to provide access to their neighboring land and potentially there hen shed if a further access track was constructed. In addition it is unclear if the cycle track running north would be available to Mr Pattinson to gain entry to his fields further towards Warcop. As previously stated, the Richardson’s run a closed ‘High Health Herd’ which therefore means that contact with other stock, is not permitted. This status of High Health enables the Richardson’s to receive a premium payment. If this was no longer achievable through cross contamination with other stock from other holdings, this status would no longer be achieved, and the premium will be lost. It is therefore our concern that the neighboring landowner has effectively been provided with a ’thoroughfare’ from one side of the A66 to the other for movement of stock and vehicles, which is currently not the case. There is also a concern regarding this access with the potential for the neighboring landowner to use the track to move livestock, the muck left on the road by the livestock would case a risk to safety for all vehicles travelling on the road. • 2 – WCH Track: The WCH track which has been proposed has come as a great concern to the Richardson’s, regarding the potential for unwanted road users. This track will effectively be a haul road off the A66 which could see a number of vehicles accessing the track even though it is not proposed to be used for public vehicular access. As the track will be 3m in diameter this track will attract these users. The other issue will see a large number of travelers use this route running up to the Horse Fair week. • 3 – Impact on Farming Business The proposed route and environmental works will have significant impact upon the farming business and although the scheme is proposed to have minimal impact. The published arrangement drawings identify that that is not the case. The proposal takes no account that there is no alternative suitable land available to rent or buy in the immediate area to make up for the land lost to the scheme and environmental proposal on both a permanent and temporary basis result in a significant amount of additional land lost. The land which will be affected is currently utilised under strict management for the grazing of the dairy herd/youngstock and also used to make crop for the winter months. This land has taken many years to improve and establish to the necessary standards to aid the growth of a high-performance, high health dairy herd. Therefore, this land is not easily replaced. Any replacement land must also be suitably located so that it is in walking distance for livestock. In addition, the heavily managed grazing land requires applications of slurry post grazing to replace nutrients lost in the ground, to intensively grow the grass back. Therefore, the loss of the land to the scheme will not only adversely affect the grazing routine of the farming business but also require the erection of a new slurry storage facility to hold excess slurry which would normally be spread on the land taken but will now need to be retained. As the current accessible land will be lost to the scheme the farm will have to withstand housing their dairy cows over a longer period. Therefore, the prolonged housing of the herd will require significant more spending on feedstuffs all year round for the dairy enterprise and additional cost with managing the slurry on farm. The current plans identify that approximately 48 acres of the land owned by the Richardson family will be lost to the scheme, this is out of the 205 acres owned at New Hall or 23% of the land holding or 8.69% of the total land holding owned of 552 acres. As you can imagine, this is of great concern to the Richardson Family, and it will have detrimental impact on the farming business which has successfully been built up over many years. The Richardson Family have already had to suffer a reduction to their current herd, selling off youngstock at an earlier date than desired, to enable the archeological works to be undertaken. Therefore, it is not an option to consider reducing the milking herd to mitigate the loss of the land. The business has built up livestock numbers to the level today after years of successful breeding. In addition, reducing cow numbers would automatically see the farming business at a disadvantage, not only would they receive a penalty from their milk buyer, but they would be disadvantaged when buying feedstuff and consumables. • 4 - Access: The main farm access (and only access) leading to New Hall is also proposed to be altered as a result of the road scheme. During the whole process, it is requested that an access is provided at all times for New Hall for all vehicular access. There is also a certified site at New Hall for the caravan and motorhome club. Therefore, it is essential that access is available at all times so that visitors of the site are not restricted or prevented from accessing. If visitors are restricted from access this could see a reduction in visitor numbers and therefore revenue from the caravan site for the family. The new underpass bridge must also be of a sufficient size and height to accommodate large agricultural machinery which the Richardson Family use. The family also take three cuts of silage off the land which results in around 30 – 40 tractors and trailers per hour over three days per cut travelling in and out of New Hall. Following this is two days of slurry spreading which will see around 10 slurry tankers per hour to use the access after each cut. On top of this there is also all other various jobs that will be undertaken over the spring/summer months which require the access. Further information is also requested to understand the maintenance responsibility of the access track both during and post construction of the scheme. In addition the access road proposed to the balancing ponds sever a number of the field parcels up and will allow third party rights over parts of the farm which currently have no rights at present this is very concerning and also represents a bio security issue. • 5 – Heathland: The environmental plans also illustrate areas of Heathland to be planted on the access, neighboring field to the access track and a buffer strip around the field on the opposite side of the access track. We object to the amount of land taken for this heathland to be planted on. We are unsure on the management responsibility of the heathland as to who will be responsible for this or how we would expect this heathland to look. Would it be expected that the farmers take the responsibility for the management of the heathland back from Highways England. There is other suitable land on the scheme for heathland without using this good quality agricultural land for the environmental mitigation. The location of the farm is not regarded as a heathland area, and it is not sightly vegetation to have on the entrance to a dairy farm which prides themselves on well-maintained grassland. Therefore, the planting of the heathland is objected to on this basis. Further information is also required to understand the necessity of planting this heathland. • 6 – Species Rich Grassland Approximately 5.27 hectares of the farms best silage ground is also proposed to be lost to accommodate balance ponds and species rich grassland. It has not been identified as to what the species rich grassland will include and to what the maintenance requirements there will be. Or whether the responsibility will remain that of Highways England or whether the responsibility will be transferred onto the farmers. We also object to the area this species rich grassland will cover and how the red line shows the grassland extending over the access track and leaving the farmer with small unviable parts of the field on the southern and western edge. • 7– Balance Ponds Objection to the size of the balance ponds and the necessity for two. Further information required regarding the maintenance track which is to be installed for the balance tracks and who will have the right to access this track and maintain the condition of it. We have requested that these are relocated to be less intrusive and also if they are to be located in this location that access will be required around these for stock movements. • 8 – Extra Land Take To the north of A66 it is identified that a large area of land has been included within the DCO red line boundary. It is not understood as to why this land is essential for the construction of the scheme and why such a large area is required. With this land being lost, this furthers the reduction of viable grazing land for the dairy herd/youngstock. This land is also classed as the dry land of the holding which enables out-wintering of youngstock. With the loss of this land under the scheme, the Richardson’s will be required to house the youngstock which will require extra feedstuffs and bedding as well as suitable housing as the current housing on farm is at full capacity at present, meaning they are unable to consider housing any more stock without additional shed space. • 9 - Footpath Diversion Objection to the location of the new footpath diversion. At present the current footpath does not impact the farming business or interfere with the day-to-day working life on the holding. The proposed diversion of the footpath will see, public utilising the under-bridge. This access is used regularly by farm machinery and the dairy cows, especially during the spring and summer months. It is of great concern to the Richardson family that this access will now be shared with the public, with concerns over health and safety of the public with farm machinery and dairy cows. Also concerns over security of the farm through allowing greater access for the public, concerns relating to stock being let out and ease of access to the farms main access route. If the footpath is to be diverted under the bridge then there will need to be a dedicated pedestrian lane so prevent any possible conflict between the farm traffic and the public. • 10 – Small Parcels of Land Excluded from the Red Line Objection of the location of the red line. The location of the red line across land parcels excludes small parts of field parcels which leaves the farmer with unviable pieces of land which will be unsuitable for agricultural use. The areas are not large enough to consider even grazing stock on. • 8 – Inappropriate use of Compulsory Purchase Powers As the full detailed design has not been carried out yet and the design keeps changing , the DCO includes large areas of additional land required which may be temporary and may be permanent, some of which it is clear that it is not required for the scheme. We ask that this is looked into. • 9 – Use of Compulsory Purchase Powers for Environmental Mitigation National Highways has included large areas of farmland for use as environmental mitigation. There is no reason why the landowners should not be able to retain ownership of such land in such circumstances if the farmer is content to take on the burden of maintenance, subject to reasonable terms being agreed to ensure the mitigation is maintained. • 10 – Maintenance of Farmland – Weed Control Measures On other schemes where large areas of land has been taken, via compulsory purchase land has then been left to lie unused for long period of time. What then happens is then weeds are allowed to grow and the condition of the land deteriorates. National Highways should be made to ensure that all land is maintained correctly. • 11 – Hedgerows Where fields are severed, by such a long linear scheme it will result in some fields being left awkward shapes. A common element for severance is the cost of removing hedges and fences in order to reshape fields into a sensible layout. Since the introduction of the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, the removal of any hedge which is more than 20 meters in length requires consent of the Local Planning Authority. This adds time, costs and uncertainty to farmers and in some instances planning authorities do not approval the removal of the hedgerows which further impacts the overall farming system of the affected party. • 12 – Interruption of Water Supplies The impact on water supplies, should be considered. National Highways should produce a management plan of how they will ensure water supplies are not impacted during the construction and operational phase of the scheme. • 13 – Land Drainage It is likely that the construction of this scheme will have a big impact upon land drainage. We would ask that it a condition of the approval that a full scheme of drainage is designed by a third party expert and then implemented. • 14 – Meetings The Richardson’s have had several meetings with various people from National Highways, during these meetings it has been promised that things would be changed and that further meetings would be arranged, to date we have not been able to arrange these meetings.