Last Friday Highways England published their consultation on the design and management of the Operation Stack relief lorry park. The consultation will be open until 23rd September, and you can find out more about it by visiting the Highways England website. They have also organised a series of public information events about the proposals, starting this Friday at Sellindge Village Hall, between 1pm and 7pm.
The previous consultation on the lorry park settled on ‘Stanford West’ as the preferred site. This includes land to the west of Stanford off of the coast bound carriageway of the M20, and land that lies to the west of the services at junction 11, between the motorway itself and the Channel Tunnel rail link. These two areas would be linked by a bridge suitable for use by heavy goods vehicles. The new consultation sets out in much more detail the work Highways England have undertaken on the design of the site. It also sets out clearly areas where there is still more work to be done. The have also published a detailed, interim Environmental Impact study.
The guiding principles for Highways England in the Operation of the lorry park is that it should be able to accommodate all of the lorries that are normally held in phases 1 and 2 of Operation Stack, when the coast bound section of the motorway is closed between junctions 8 and 9, and 10 and 11. The lorries should also be able to access and exit the lorry park directly from the motorway, so that local roads, and the motorway itself should run normally. It is also important that the lorry park is located as close as possible to the Channel Tunnel and Port of Dover, so that the lorries can be called down to make their departure slots as quickly as possible.
I believe that Kent should never again be made to suffer as it did last summer, where we had weeks of disruption that brought the county to a standstill, made peoples lives a misery and cost local businesses £millions in costs and lost revenue. We also have to accept, that with the volume of road freight traffic set to grow over the coming years, this problem is likely to get worse if we do nothing about it.
There are a number of important issues though that Highways England need to finalise through this consultation. Firstly, they are proposing that initially, the exit from the M20 at junction 11 on the coast bound carriageway will be closed when the lorry park is being used for Operation Stack. Highways England are designing a road management system to resolve this problem, and I want them to have this ready from day one, so that the junction can be open as normal, even when Stack is in operation. Highways England also acknowledge that the lorry park has to be designed to mitigate noise coming from it, and the visual impact on close by communities. They are proposing to do this with substantial planting around and through the site, the creation of an acoustic wall to reduce noise pollution, and raised banks, covered with planting at the perimeter site. Highways England have also stated that they will use lighting sensitive to the movement of lorries, to reduce light pollution on the site. The consultation also reports that the lorry park will have a negligible impact on air quality.
I have also raised already with the Department for Transport the need for a bespoke compensation scheme for residents directly impacted by the lorry park, so that individual requirements can be considered fully.