Railfreight inquiry: Strife: "Railfreight would devastate Green Belt" (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Railfreight inquiry: Strife: "Railfreight would devastate Green Belt"

11:50am Tuesday 24th November 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

THE proposed railfreight terminal would devastate open green belt land and would fail in its objectives, campaign group Strife has told the inquiry.

The group's barrister Paul Stinchcombe told inspector Andy Mead: “The largest shed would be bigger than Terminal Five at Heathrow.

“The proposal would be a gigantic sprawl of a built-up area into open Green Belt land.

“It would result in the encroachment of huge warehouses into the countryside.

“The location poses very profound difficulties indeed.

“The Midland main line is already one of the most intensively used lines on the whole network.

“And there is no proposed connection to the north.

“This would be permitted on a false prospectus that it can meet a need for the interchange between rail and road, only for it to operate as a predominanmtly road-to-road depot.

"This would fly in the face of every tier of planning policy."

Click the related link below for live updates from the inquiry.