Agenda item

To receive the report from the Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport and the Corporate Director for Growth, Environment & Transport and to consider and endorse or make recommendations to the Cabinet Member.

(1)       The Cabinet Committee received a report of the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport and the Corporate Director of Growth, Environment and Transport which contained information on the Lorry Park Network (Phase 1) for the consideration of the Committee. 

 

(2)       The Chairman announced that a letter had been received from the Leader of Shepway District Council and she had also had a written submission from the local KCC Member, Miss Carey.  Both documents are attached to these Minutes.

 

(3)       Ann Carruthers, Transport Delivery Strategy Manager, and Fayyaz Qadir, Principal Transport  Planner - Delivery, were in attendance to introduce the report and in particular referred to the following:

 

(4)       Due to its position as the gateway between the UK and Europe, Kent suffers from issues caused by inappropriate overnight lorry parking as well as the effects of Operation Stack when it is called.  In order to address these issues over the past 12-18 months preliminary investigation work had been undertaken.  This included a three stage process of:

 

(i)        Site identification and assessment

(ii)       Assessment of demand for additional lorry parking; and

(iii)      Commercial viability assessment

 

(5)       The first step in the initial lorry park site identification had been to review all previous work considering potential sites for lorry parks including Operation Stack lorry parking facilities in the county.  This led to a long list of 54 possible sites. 

 

(6)       Discussions took place with relevant local planning authorities (Ashford, Dover, Shepway, Swale, Tonbridge and Malling, Gravesham, Maidstone, Medway), Kent Police, the Highways Agency and a number of KCC internal consultees which had resulted in 31 sites going forward for further assessment.

 

(7)       The 31 sites did not include the Aldington site that had previously been considered for a large scale Operation Stack lorry park because of high land costs and need for the construction of slip roads to the M20. 

 

(8)       Further assessment was made against the criteria below which reduced the number of potential sites to eight:

 

·                Transport (access to site, strategic network junction capacity);

·                Site characteristics (topography, capacity);

·                Environmental considerations (designations, AONB, heritage, drainage); and

·                Planning considerations (current land use, local plan allocations, proximity to residential)

 

(9)       Five of the sites identified were on the M20/A20 corridor and three on the M2/A2 corridor reflecting the higher percentage of HGV (80%) that use the M20/A20 corridor and for a number of these sites their capacity could be increased if necessary.

 

(10)    With regard to the demand assessment it was established that five to six nights a week current lorry park operators were turning lorries away.  Work was also carried out to assess the level of demand for truck parking in future.  HGV volumes were obtained from the Highways Agency and growth factors were applied from the Department for Transport (DfT), Eurotunnel and Port of Dover in order to forecast volumes to 2060. The latter two were used to account for growth in international traffic which was used as the basis for assessing demand for overnight parking.  Along with data on existing HGV capacity this information was used to develop a demand model.  The model, which calculates demand for parking every 5 years, shows a 330% increase over the time period to 2060 from demand for just below 1,000 spaces to just over 3,300 spaces, a trebling of demand.

 

(11)    It was essential that the proposals were commercially viable given that the bulk of funding for this project would be via a loan.  Reduced rate borrowing of £12.7m had been secured from the Public Works Loan Board to deliver the project.

 

(12)    Consideration of the site assessment, demand assessment and commercial viability led to the shortlist of the three sites below:

 

a)        Westenhanger, adjacent to Stop24, M20 J11;

b)        Extension to Ashford International Truckstop; and

c)         White Cliffs Business Park, Dover.

 

(13)    Overall the Westenhanger site had the highest Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Net Present Value (NPV) of the 3 sites.  The main reasons for this were that it would be less expensive to deliver and would provide marginally more spaces than the other 2 sites and therefore provide a greater return in relation to cost.  This would be aided by the fact that the Westenhanger site was in an ideal location in terms of access to the strategic road network. 

 

(14)    The landowner of the Ashford site had indicated that he wished to retain ownership with a view to expand the site in terms of future development.  This site therefore was only likely to provide a short to medium term option whereas there was no similar constraint at Westenhanger making it the preferred site for the first lorry park providing a longer term investment.

 

(15)    In response to the letter from Councillor David Monk, Leader of Shepway District Council (SDC), Ms Carruthers made the following points:

 

Visual & Landscape Intrusion Impact

 

(16)    While the Westenhanger site is not in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) it lies adjacent to it.  Advice had been taken on the design and landscaping of the lorry park to limit any visual impact and fully incorporate the design in terms of flooding, ecology and landscape from the start.  If the lorry park was built near the northern boundary of the site it would have less visual impact on the AONB.  No major work had been done by KCC on this yet.

 

No Local Plan entry/allocation for a lorry park on this land

 

(17)    SDC had adopted its Local Plan in September 2013 and it had taken several years to put together.  It was unfortunate that the timing for the proposed network of lorry park sites did not tie in with this.  Cllr Monk referred to a Regulation 18 consultation which would begin later this year as the next phase of SDC’s Local Plan and KCC was fully engaged to working with SDC on the outcomes of this consultation.  It was understood that some of the consultation would look at potential employment land throughout the district including land around motorway junctions. 

 

Due consideration not given to other sites

 

(18)    Of the original list of 54 sites 11 had been in Shepway.  During consultation SDC had made KCC aware that they had an alternative preferred site in Westenhanger.  This site was just to the west of the existing Stop 24 between the motorway and the railway.

 

(19)    KCC had looked at the site in some detail and found that part of the site was within flood zone 3 designation, which meant that it was subject to flooding one in one hundred years or more.  There were, according to the National Land Registry, more than forty title holders.  Also, in order to access the site, KCC would have to implement Compulsory Purchase Orders on several houses.  Given all these issues KCC did not consider this was a site they wished to put forward for further consideration.

 

(20)    The Ashford site was comparable to the Westenhanger site on many of the criteria.  The current landowner, who owned and ran the Ashford International Truckstop, was looking to extend the existing lorry park and also wanted to retain ownership of the site with aspirations to develop the site for other purposes if this became feasible in future through the Local Plan process.  In terms of long term investment this could pose an element of risk.

 

(21)    The White Cliffs site was poorer than the others on the commercial viability criterion.  The site had been proposed originally by Dover District Council (DDC) but they had since made KCC aware of potential development opportunities within the White Cliff Business Park which may make the lorry park site unviable.  Finally only 20% of HGV traffic used the A2/M2 corridor.

 

(22)    Once a preferred site had been selected the next phase of work would be a public consultation later this year or early next year on the preferred site only. 

 

(23)    If in the future a second lorry park was deemed viable the whole process would begin again, the two sites not selected would not automatically be deemed appropriate. 

 

(24)    Members raised the following points in response to Ms Carruthers’ introduction:

 

(25)    Statistics showed that there was a need for lorry parks in the future, a trebling of HGV traffic by 2060 according to the DfT.  As well as the lorry parking facilities KCC needed to look at the capacity of local roads and also at the bigger picture.

 

(26)    A change was needed at national level to ensure that enforcement powers were available to challenge illegal parking. 

 

(27)    One giant lorry park for all was no longer viable.  A series of smaller lorry parks was the way forward but the timescale for implementation of the first of this network of sites could be problematic.  Provision for additional lorry parking would not be in place before 2018 by which time the problem would have increased.  If it took so long to build the first lorry park there was time to lobby government to change the law and opinion across the country and the continent about the unacceptability of illegal lorry parking.  Illegal lorry parking was not tolerated on continental Europe where measures to deal with it had been introduced 20 years ago.  It was suggested that a change in culture was required as much as a change in the law to resolve these issues in the UK.

 

(28)    The White Cliffs site was not viable not only because of the potential development on the White Cliffs Business Park but also because the A2 in its current state was not the preferred route for lorries hence only 20% of HGV traffic used it.   Also many foreign drivers were unclear about the roundabout system and how it worked.

 

(29)    Following the debate the Chairman put the recommendations to the vote.  As a recorded vote had been requested the results were as follows:

 

For (11)              Mrs P Stockell, Mr C Caller, Dr M Eddy, Mr M Harrison, Mr G Lymer, Mr B MacDowall, Mr J Ozog, Mr R Parry, Mr C Pearman, Mr C Simkins, Mr A Wickham

 

Against (2)         Mr M Baldock, Mr M Whybrow

 

Abstain (1)         Mr I Chittenden

Carried

 

(30)   RESOLVED that the Cabinet Committee agree the following recommendations:

 

a)      the Council’s previous proposal to address the impact of Operation Stack through the construction of one large scale lorry park at Aldington as set out in “Growth without Gridlock” (December 2010) is not pursued;

b)      the site off the M20 Junction 11 at Westenhanger is the preferred location for the construction of a lorry park as the first phase of the delivery of a network of lorry parks across Kent;

c)      scheme development work to take forward the delivery of this preferred site be progressed immediately in conjunction with KCC Property & Infrastructure Group including necessary officer or member decisions, dependent on the particular governance requirements, regarding land acquisition and securing planning consent for the project;

d)      two strands of work, one on HGV parking enforcement and the other on HGV signing in the event of Operation Stack being called, be progressed in parallel with the development work to deliver the first lorry park, and;

e)      consideration of progressing a second lorry park site as part of the network of sites across the county with a view to delivering this second lorry park within the next 5-6 years is brought back to Cabinet Committee at the appropriate time.