Representation by Tim Nicholson
- Date submitted
- 4 September 2022
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
In the text below "We" refers to the land owners Mrs Felicity Nicholson and Mr Timothy Nicholson who are partners in RK&GF Nicholson and Timothy Nicholson and Emma Nicholson who are directors of Cactus Tree Guards Ltd. I make no apologies for the length of this representation. There are so many issues to raise in our OBJECTION that it would be impossible to raise them all in 500 words. This is a reflection of the shear number of issues that we raised at StatCon that have still not been dealt with by NH. We demand the right to be heard. We OBJECT to the proposals for the A66 dualling specifically around Kirkby Thore village (Temple Sowerby to Appleby section) on the grounds of it being a poorly considered proposal which has not been properly consulted on. It represents poor value for public money with a Benefit:Cost ratio of less than 1 and the poor route selection SPECIFICALLY on this section will cost more than £80m more and emit more than 600,000 tonnes more CO2e than than the alternative ("orange" or "southern") route (NH own figures) in construction alone. On this basis alone the application should be rejected. Furthermore we wish to be heard specifically with regards to the proposals directly affecting Sleastonhow Farm the owner/occupiers RK&GF Nicholson farm partnership, Cactus Tree Guards LTD and the owner occupiers of Sleastonhow Farmhouse and Hare Cottage “The Bungalow”. We make the following observations on the application under examination: 1) Mitigation of noise, light and air pollution. The proposed mitigation is insufficient to mitigate the impact of noise and light on the occupiers, their houses and protect their amenity of the land. On the selected route there is no to insufficient provision for mitigation of noise, light and air pollution. These factors will all be far worse under this scheme for the entire village of Kirkby Thore other than those few houses on the alignment of the current road. NH demonstrate this in their own data. Kirkby Thore village school will be adversely affected bringing the road within 250m of the school with increased speeds and air pollution risks which are now well documented. We find this unacceptable for the local community. 2) We question the impact of increasing road speeds when it produces more pollution, increases C02e emissions and the risk of fatal accidents due to higher speeds. The issues in this scheme are the poor traffic management at both ends of the A66 on the A1 and M6 junctions. Increasing speeds to these junctions will only make the problems worse and encourage more traffic. This is wholly unsustainable when improved traffic management along the length would make the road safer, quieter, less polluting, have a lessened visual impact in the setting of the AONB and Yorkshire Dales NP. NH has consistently failed to upgrade the problem sections of this trunk road for over 40 years and now concludes the only solution is to dual the whole road and increase traffic numbers and speeds which they forecast will significantly increase within the project lifetime. This is unsustainable for this highly scenic area between 3 protected landscape area. They have failed to consider providing alternative routes and transport options. Surely this project is driven by outdated C20th thinking. 3) Impact of loss of land, soils and severance to farm business The selected route will have an unacceptable impact by severing the land across the best block of land on the farm. It dissects all the south facing sandy loam fields. The land take for construction compounds, the road with bridge, revised alignment of Sleastonhow Lane with the dual carriageway, access tracks and balancing ponds will be devastating to the farmed unit. This is an average sized family farm which is rare in that the farm buildings are in the middle of the whole block of land. Continued loss of high quality agricultural cropping land is socially and morally unacceptable. The farm is in transition to farming regeneratively with a focus on building soil health prior to growing heritage grains for human consumption. The selected route will completely destroy this business plan by leaving the farm with very little choice of arable cropping fields to do this on. By comparison, the southern (orange) route option would lead to far less loss of productive agricultural land, mostly sighted on existing concreted areas and the old railway sidings and being considerably narrower and shorter due to it's direct alignment. 4) Water supplies. The selected route will impact on our mains and private borehole supplies. We have provided details as to where these supply pipes and borehole are located at StatCon and NH has failed to address our concerns. The borehole is right next to the proposed bridge over the Trout Beck river so it is hard to see how it won't be damaged/polluted in construction. 5) Power supply and generation. The construction stage will inevitably interrupt the mains power supply to the farm. Any interruption of the 3 phase supply is business critical as we use 3 phase motors to run wood processing machines most days. It would also impact on our ability to feed power into the grid via the 54kwp of solar panels we have on the buildings. So far NH have not commented and were given details at StatCon. 6) Drainage and damage to soils. The construction phase will inevitably lead to very damaged soils and sub-soils due to the impact of heavy plant and storage of materials. The sloping ground that the selected route would carve through will be at very high risk of soil wash, inevitably polluting the SSSI/SAC rivers. In the event of intense rainfall and/or flooding it will be impossible to avoid soil wash into the river. The damage to the SSSI/SAC will be significant. Construction compounds will damage underlying soils and land drains. Soils rarely recover from this long term damage. 7) Re-alignment of Sleastonhow Lane. The re-alignment of Sleastonhow Lane seems excessive, destroying more good sandy loam soils and destroying an ancient trackway, ancient species rich hedgerows. A more ecological approach would be to cross the new highway with a longer span of bridge and keep the current alignment, biodiversity and character of Sleastonhow Lane as in tact as possible. It is important to note here that this bridge needs to have a load capacity in excess of 50 tonnes so that articulated grain wagons and wagon and drag timber wagons can access the farm buildings. We have not had confirmation from NH that a suitable bridge would be provided despite raising the issue at StatCon. 8) Loss of Species and habitats and habitat connectivity. The selected route does not take any consideration of the existing habitats and linear features. The plan shows excessive lengths of ancient hedgerow removal and the compounds and lay-down areas are shown to be right over new woodland, new hedgerows, ancient hedgerows etc. If these aren’t retained connectivity of habitats in the landscape will be severed. We have spent a lot of time, money over the last 25 years to manage the hedgerows to their best potential. The difference in quality between our hedgerows and those in the surrounding landscape is notable. NH have suggested that they would want us to enter a management agreement to manage habitats created for mitigation of biodiversity loss and we have asked for more details on numerous occasions but they have failed to provide any. The selected route risks threating a significant local wintering roost (400 +lapwings, 100 + golden plover) and summer breeding site for s41 species of wader (curlew, lapwing, snipe, red shank, golden plover) and they have not offered any mitigation. The selected route will cause unacceptable disturbance for these species with noise, vibration, light and air pollution. 9) Impacts on local landscape value, amenity and fine vistas. The blue and red routes carve their way through an ancient agricultural landscape with a complete lack of regard for the impact on the landform, fine rural vistas and well-being of the local residents who enjoy the views from Sleastonhow Lane, Priest Lane and Station Road. This important local amenity will be lost with the disruption of views and noise and light pollution from the proposed alignments. It has been stated that “the finest views in the whole of Westmorland" were to be seen from Sleastonhow Lane”. It is also the route of the increasingly popular “Lady Anne Way”. If it weren’t for the current A66 and British Gypsum works detracting from the landscape we believe that this is far superior landscape than most areas which are protected landscapes, affording fine views to Wild Boar Fell, The Howgills, The Lake District Fells (including the prominent Blencathra) and also the northern Pennine chain with its highest peak Cross Fell. 10) Loss of biodiversity We currently enjoy daily sightings of brown hare in the south facing fields and sparrow hawks and barn owls hunting along the lanes. We have seen and recorded otter along the river and floodplain and badger along the tracks. These species will surely be lost through disturbance and road deaths if this route goes ahead. The road will become an impenetrable barrier for many species. Butterflies, moths and birds will also be decimated by the loss of habitat and disturbance. We really value seeing these species in our daily lives. Our lives will be much poorer for this loss. 11) Shooting and fishing rights and general amenity. The selected route will both lead to a loss of our sporting rights on the farm. The location of the highway would also prevent any shooting rights from being exercised in the vicinity of the road. The light pollution from the selected route will lead to us not being able to see the constellations of the night sky. These routes will inevitably lead to a loss of wildlife in our surroundings. The first few years of construction and operation of the road will lead to a massacre of wildlife in this area. Roe deer will be a particular problem for the road users as they will continue to try and cross the impacted fields into their existing territories on both sides of the Trout beck. The Barn owls and bats that currently traverse these fields and hunt along the hedgerows will be killed by trucks, as will hares, badgers, hedgehogs and otters. This will lead to the unnecessary loss of s41 species when the Orange route could been built online, not severing another landscape. The existing corridor already serves as a barrier to wildlife, why create another far worse one? There is nothing that can mitigate this biodiversity loss. NH should be held accountable to delivering Biodiversity Net Gain in this project. 10) NH's failure to consult. The alternative routes have not been properly consulted on as "general arrangement drawings" were never provided for the alternative routes meaning that consultees could not sensibly assess the alternatives. It is also clear that the preferred route was selected in a rush due to pressures of "Project Speed" from the outset and then NH have worked to make their route selection fit at any cost in a faux-consultation process. This is not a logical process and you could not ever expect that approach to select the best option, or option of least over-all impact. We as local occupants, land and business owners have raised our concerns about the lack of transparency and consultation AT EVERY STAGE in this process and our concerns and questions have consistently not been answered. This demonstrates a failure to consult and we therefore believe this project section should be refused by the Planning Inspectorate.