ANGRY residents at Warrington are fighting plans to extend a time limit on controversial highway works to provide rail access to a giant tipping site.
Twenty residents of Eastford Road, Lower Walton have signed a petition opposing an application by the Waste Recycling Group to change the timescales on planning consent for highway construction in connection with a new rail head to provide access to the Arpley Landfill site.
Under the scheme, wagons carrying rail-borne waste would travel from rail sidings onto an 80-metre stretch of Eastford Road before turning onto an access to the landfill site.
Planning permission was granted for the rail head 10 years ago but has never been implemented.
The company maintains it still intends to build the rail access but says in the current commercial situation this will not occur before the planning consent expires in December.
They want to extend the existing planning consent so it is kept alive permanently.
Residents say the scheme offers no benefits to people living in Eastford Road and there will be extra noise, traffic and airborne pollution.
Planning chiefs – who are recommending the change of timescales be approved – admit there are no direct benefits to Eastford Road residents.
But they say there is unlikely to be any significant environmental impact on them either, while residents of Liverpool Road will receive a significant benefit from reduced traffic generation in the event of the rail head being built.
Traffic control measures will be implemented on a short stretch of Eastford Road along which rail-borne waste would be transported and the road would not be used to gain access to the landfill site.
Planners argue there are no grounds to refuse the application and conditions can be attached to minimise noise problems.
If the application is approved it will avoid the need for the company to submit further applications – although at the moment there can be no guarantee of when the rail head would be built.
