Fears of long HGV tailbacks at Brexit lorry park near Warrington
Concerns have been raised about tailbacks of as many as 700 lorries a day queuing for Brexit checks in a new government site to be opened near Warrington.
The lorry park in Appleton Thorn was previously used as a coach interchange for the holiday company Shearings, and was chosen because there were no suitable sites available for lorries coming from Ireland into Liverpool, Holyhead and Heysham ports.
There has been strong local opposition to the prospect of HGV traffic building up in the town, and the chief executive of Warrington borough council, Steven Broomhead, said he was extremely concerned about gridlock and pollution.
“This application wasn’t determined by the local authority. It’s been imposed on us and the best they could really do is give us some financial support to get some traffic measures in,” he said.
Local residents have launched an appeal to monitor the impact of the site.
The chairman of Lymm parish council, Geoff Hawley, told local media: “We are vehemently opposed to the development and have very serious concerns about the facility and its potential impact on Lymm and south Warrington.
“The parish council will be liaising with the relevant organisations to minimise its impact on Lymm’s residents and visitors.”
The Warrington site is one of 10 “inland border facilities” the government is opening to cope with lorry congestion around key ports including Dover and to provide facilities for HMRC checks on customs declarations for goods coming into the country.
The other facilities include two sites at Ashford in Kent, Birmingham airport, Ebbsfleet just south of the Dartford bridge on the Thames estuary, Manston airport in Kent and North Weald in Cambridgeshire.
The latter site, which will located close to junction seven of the M11 north of the M25, will cater for lorries coming from Felixstowe and Harwich in the east and airfreight from Stansted airport just a few miles north.
The government has said that in the worst-case scenario there could be queues of as many as 7,000 lorries trying to board ferries and Eurotunnel trains in Kent cause by inward and outward traffic.
Queues up to five miles long formed in Kent 10 days ago when the French authorities tested their Brexit immigration software.
A government spokesperson said: “We will have the necessary infrastructure in place by the end of the transition period, with construction in progress.
“We have consulted with local residents at every stage of the planning process, publishing detailed plans for the proposed sites online, and writing to residents to invite them to submit comments on the proposals.
“We have also held extensive conversations with local authorities and MPs ahead of submitting proposals for the sites, and we will continue to engage with all local stakeholders as these plans progress.”
