Representation by John Frederick Stone
- Date submitted
- 28 May 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Many anxieties exist concerning the Hinckley National Rail Freight Interchange (HNRFI). These include Ecology, Drainage and Flood Risk, Landscape and Noise and Air Quality. One of my primary concerns as a resident of Stoney Stanton is the magnitude of the proposition. It represents a gross overdevelopment of a rural area, significantly affecting the village's setting and the daily lives of communities in other surrounding settlements. I constrain myself here, however, to two essential heads: Location It is a mistake to conclude that the proposed site for the rail freight interchange necessitates a location at Junction 2 of the M69, predicated as it is on the facility falling within the county boundaries of Leicestershire. Constructing a rail freight interchange between Hinckley and Nuneaton would meet the localised needs for an intermodal hub. The expansion of the East Midlands Parkway Railway site, just north of the county, represents a much better opportunity to serve both Leicestershire and the Midlands. There is a foremost deficit in the robustness of the analysis of suitable sites to serve the Midlands if county borders are to take precedence over all other considerations; such an unnecessary constraint places restrictions on the assessment of best site options. Highways Strategy Inextricably linked to location is the highway infrastructure required to support the intermodal model. The increase in Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) traffic, affecting the villages which proximate the proposed HNRFI, is an unavoidable result given that rail cannot undertake an entire end-to-end journey for freight. Rail freight interchanges rely on the transfer of goods from rail to road, thus allowing the rail element to be used to best effect to undertake the long-haul primary trunk journey, with the road component providing the secondary leg. The visualised HNRFI intends that all HGV movements go via the key highway routes (M69 primarily) and not through the secondary roads which serve the nearby villages. There would be considerable increases in HGV traffic along many of these secondary roads, including in the centre of Sapcote on the B4669 Hinckley Road between Stanton Lane and Sharnford Road. The HNRFI would also significantly affect the secondary roads serving the other nearby villages regardless of the developer's intentions. I understand there are no plans to construct a bypass around Sapcote to mitigate this severe increase in HGV traffic. The developer should assess the M69 Junction 3 and the M69/M1 Junction capacity to see whether upgrades are required. Congestion on this route undermines the whole basis of the highway strategy to direct HGV movements towards the M69. Unless the critical highway routes are first improved, HGV traffic will use undesirable cross-country routes. Formulating a road transport model is required to provide sufficiently accurate detail of the impacts of the HNFRI. The developer needs to be far more precise on the intended operational function of the HNRFI to facilitate this. There are presently significant shortcomings in the highways strategy.