"Nightmare" lorry park grew without approval

12.00.00am GMT Tue 1st Apr 2008

The Chalcroft Distribution Park and its hundreds of lorry movements each day is a "nightmare" that had come to reality without anyone planning it or approving it, according to Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne.

Mr Huhne was giving evidence to the Traffic Commissioner, Mr Philip Brown, who was reviewing the operation of the site at a special hearing at the Hilton Hotel, Southampton.

Mr Huhne said it was unusual for a local MP to make an appearance at such a tribunal but he had "never come across such a blatant case where wholly inappropriate activities had grown up like topsy in a residential area.

"Chalcroft distribution park is a major failure of public planning, as it grew up by accident from the previous and much more limited use by the Royal Navy of the site as a victualling depot largely served by a rail spur.

"Now it is a major logistics centre with hundreds of lorry movements a week, operating all day and all night, and proving a bane to local residents. It is their worst nightmare.

"The HGV traffic is a danger to residents and their children who cannot walk in the lane, and it is simply overwhelming in its scale by comparison with the narrow country lane access road.

"The lane has a 7.5 tonne weight limit, but it is consistently used by 45 tonne articulated lorries simply because there was always an exemption for local access. However, it was never envisaged that access would mean 300 lorries a day and 45 overnight" said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne is backing the Burnetts Lane Residents' Association and all the local councillors for Fair Oak, Horton Heath and West End in asking for the licence to be stopped, and strict limits put on the weight of lorries and the nighttime use of the park.