Campaigner airs concerns over Redditch Eastern Gateway - The Redditch Standard

Campaigner airs concerns over Redditch Eastern Gateway

Redditch Editorial 23rd Aug, 2019   0

A REDDITCH Eastern Gateway campaigner fears borough planners may have missed many of the issues concerning plans for a giant distribution centre on the site.

Len Quartly has written to councillors highlighting points he feels they should take into consideration next time they consider the application on the northern half of the site from developers Stofords.

“At last week’s planning committee meeting I was aching to shout out ‘look at the elevations!’ – in fact I did in the end,” said the Winyates Green resident.

“The fact is although councillors were told the building was going to be 16.2metres high, what was not mentioned in Stoford’s statement was that it was going to be sitting on up to six metres of earthworks.”




The plans envisage 119 parking bays for juggernauts and 113 loading bays for them with 44 on the south west side making them highly visible from the Coventry Highway.

“What is being done to screen all this?” asked Len.


“And whilst I can see that the current application lies entirely outside the Redditch local authority area, as the original outline application called for decisions by all three involved councils – Redditch, Bromsgrove and Stratford – why now is Redditch only being treated as a consultee?”

He also hit out at the HGV routing strategy which will send southbound juggernauts through the Redditch road system.

“Stratford’s planning committee consider Redditch roads suitable for HGV traffic,” he said.

“Overall the so-called border co-operation between the three councils both about the HGV routing strategy and the development now appears to be a one-sided push by Stratford with all the adverse effects felt only by Redditch residents.”

At last week’s meeting planning committee councillors had been asked for their views on the appearance of the development and on-site preparation works.

After a recommendation from Councillor Bill Hartnett (Lab, Church Hill) that they shouldn’t be considering the look of the centre when they hadn’t even approved it yet was dismissed, a long debate followed which ended in Stofords being asked to come back with more options.

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