Representation by David James Black
- Date submitted
- 22 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
In the current era of supplies being sourced from other countries, we as a country should be more self sufficient both in agriculture and manufacturing.There is a great danger in being dependent to a great extent on the regimes of countries that can disrupt supplies. Although the world operates as a global mechanism it is clearly obvious that agriculture and as much manufacturing self sufficiency should be encouraged. The proposal to place a national Rail freight interchange at Hinckley is not appropriate. The logic seems to me that the movement of the container despatch point is moving from Felixstowe/Harwich to an inland site at Hinckley. The justification is on the basis of placing transport off the road (presumably A14 - and necessarily avoiding a capital government investment in upgrading those parts of the A14) and contributing to the reduction of CO2 and thus aiding climate measures. However I see that whilst trunk movements may dwindle, the distribution of those containers which may contain multiple customers reqiuire sorting at the freight interchange and require the myriad of lorry distribution in all directions from this site, thus adding to or exceeding the emissions on the trunking system. One does not know how many customers are within one container. I noted from the rail representative from Tritax Symmetry that the movements conducted by the rail element at Hinckley would be estimated at 25% or less which places the rest of the movements on to lorries which leads to the commercial traffic volumes being overwhelming to the local road infrastructure. We are adjacent to many rail freight interchanges and we are within the "Golden Triangle" for distribution, including the vast Magna Park on the A5 which is expanding and now consists of Central Northern and Southern hubs. If we are to put less reliance on imports, the necessity of another gigantic distribution centre in Hinckley maybe a white elephant. At the same time we are covering over 450 acres of agricultural land with concrete and tarmac (that land area is equivalent to 2/3 the size of Burbage which sits next door to the proposed development) At the completion of the project, the strains within the Burbage and Hinckley communities would be enormous in terms of schools, medical centres and internal road infrastructure.(roads have not changed within the village? in the last 40 years) As it is housing development has increased the population by more than 15% in the last ten years. During construction the site would pose enormous problems for the local highways and motorways. The proposed direct link to the site is from the M69, whether that be from Leicester or, if phasing is correct with the southern slip roads at Jct 2 being completed, from Coventry, would be the only suitable way into the site. The from-Rugby A5 is not dualled as an entity and from the North West (Tamworth) it is single carriageway past Hinckley right through to Smockington Hollow with a LOW bridge which is continually being hit by high lorries. This is even congested under current traffic volumes as the A5 and A47 ring road converge at a roundabout Thus the A5 is overloaded traffic wise and any obstruction at the low railway bridge provides chaos for Hinckley overall. The construction heights in this massive complex although being reduced in places from over 30 metres are now at 27m and in concept sometimes lower. This height is still well over a 17m height that is used in usual warehouse construction. Storage ability is at 850,000 sq metres which would rival the storage capacity of the enlarged Magna Park which has the ability to disseminate traffic accessing and exiting their site by numerous ways: we would have ONE. which would lead to excessive movements per hour at this junction Summary: a) Inappropriate with so many warehousing and other terminals nearby b) as a country we must aim to be more self sufficient and preserve our agricultural land. c) rail movements don't make justification for an interchange. It basically becomes a super-high lorry distribution centre. (I'm sure railway investment could allow diversion of goods trains to other interchanges. eg East Midland. d) the A5 has not the capacity for construction or lorry movements at completion. e) warehousing is enormous with the detrimental factors of noise, light pollution, 24 hour working and proximity to the well used natural facility of Burbage Woods.