CROFT Parish Council has expressed its serious concerns about the proposed Rail Freight Interchange to the west of the parish and impacting land within its wards.
Tritax’s ILP North proposal is for a large Strategic Rail Freight Interchange (SRFI) with an intermodal rail terminal and around 7.4 million square feet of warehousing on the former Parkside Colliery site.
Parish Cllr for Croft, Stuart Mann, told Warrington Worldwide: “This development would be bigger than the whole of Culcheth and three times the size of Croft Village and is being pushed onto our doorstep without a credible plan to protect the communities it will overwhelm.”
On paper, shifting freight from road to rail should be positive. But lessons from similar applications—particularly Tritax’s Hinckley SRFI, refused by the Secretary of State in 2025—show that, unless rail capacity is delivered up front and road impacts are fully mitigated, nearby communities bear the brunt.
“In north Warrington, that brunt will be felt most by residents in Winwick, Hermitage Green, Croft, Culcheth, Glazebury and Burtonwood.
“If we look at the developers’ own figures, the proposal suggests:
– Up to sixteen freight trains per day, each up to 775m long
– Around 52 containers per train in realistic operation
– Around 830–1,000 containers per day
– A conversion rate of 1.35 HGV movements per container
Cllr. Mann added: “Worst case scenario, this could equate to around 1,120 HGV movements per day, approximately 780 of which could be on the wider road network.
“Two official corridors for these hundreds of HGVs point directly at our villages: M6 Junction 22 and M62 Junction 9.
“Much of the publicity regarding the Parkside Regeneration as a whole (Phases 1-3) has continually mentioned the expectation that all traffic will use Junction 22 of the M6, a stretch of motorway that daily users will attest hardly ever moves during rush hour, even after the completion of the much delayed smart section, but it is critical to note that M6 Junction 22 is not the only official freight route into Parkside.
“The M62 Junction 9 (B&Q) → A49 → Winwick Link Road corridor is also designated for Parkside HGVs. This funnels traffic directly into Winwick, with inevitable spillover risks into Croft, Culcheth, Glazebury and Burtonwood.
“As yet the Parkside Link Road, which was sold as relief for these problems, has not eased traffic woes and that’s when it’s an empty road with no warehouses on it. Instead of the promised relief, the link road appears to have redistributed traffic onto unsuitable routes, worsening local conditions on Myddelton Lane and Golborne Road in Winwick, Heath Lane and other Croft village routes, as well as Culcheth approaches already operating at saturation.
“The ILP North proposal risks turbo-charging these rat-runs even more without firm routing controls being in place.
“Another major issue, less visible to the public but equally serious, has also now been highlighted by local farmers. The proposal to export hundreds of thousands of tonnes of topsoil from the ILP North site onto farmland in Croft.”
Tritax’s plan to dump stripped topsoil from the ILP site onto farmland east of Winwick Lane would represent intrusive and long‑lasting disruption to productive agricultural land.
Even in perfect conditions, the soil movement would have to be carried out in dry summer months, meaning a 3–6 month operation, forcing farmers to lose that current year’s harvest as well as the following year’s sowing and cropping cycle and of course, transporting this volume of soil would generate continuous HGV flows along the A579/Winwick Lane for years.
Tritax’s Hinckley SRFI was refused for failing to demonstrate road safety compliance and for inadequate local impact assessment. Many of the same concerns apply here.
It is vitally important that Warrington Borough Council, working very closely with St Helens and Wigan, ensures to:
1. Fully model all local junctions and village routes surrounding the proposed location
2. Make early off-site HGV and traffic mitigation mandatory
3. Install ANPR enforcement from day one on all approaching routes
4. Develop a robust cross-boundary traffic and flood-risk assessment
5. Publish a transparent community impact report
Cllr. Mann added: “All of these concerns are technical, but the lived reality is simple if this huge development gets the go-ahead.”
1. Will your child be able to cross the A49 safely in Winwick?
2. Will Croft face increased flooding due to thousands of tonnes of additional soil and filled drainage ditches?
3. Will our rural roads endure gridlock and years of construction traffic?
4. Will farmland be damaged beyond repair?
Cllr Mann concluded: “North Warrington cannot become the motorway service yard of the North West. Our villages are already under strain—this scheme would tip them into permanent gridlock. We need binding commitments, enforceable controls and cross-boundary cooperation before any development proceeds.”
All the information regarding the proposal can be viewed at the following link
Intermodal Logistics Park North | Tritax Big Box
Consultation events are still planned on the following dates, times and locations.
• Saturday 29 November 2025 at Church Lane Community Centre, 243 Church Lane, Lowton, WA3 2RZ from 10am to 2pm
For those unable to attend one of the in-person events, there will be holding an online webinar on:
• Wednesday 3 December 2025 from 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Register at the website link mentioned above.
