Just four trains a day could initially use the “nationally significant” 440 Hinckley National Rail Freight Interchange – if it gets the go ahead. Developers want to build the vast £750 million rail and warehouse complex on land between the M69 motorway and the Leicester to Birmingham railway line in west Leicestershire.
They say it is the most suitable spot for a freight hub – as well as more than 9 million sq ft of warehousing up to 91ft high – sitting alongside the track which stretches from the port at Felixstowe up to Nuneaton.
MPs, councils and residents have criticised the scheme saying it is too big and will have a huge impact on the local environment and road network – with up to 9,000 HGV movements a day.
As well as space to accept trains measuring almost half a mile long it will include two new southbound slip roads built on junction 2 of the M69 between Hinckley and Sapcote.
Earlier this month South Leicestershire MP Alberto Costa raised his concerns with the Deputy Prime Minister in the House of Commons.
He said: “The planning application for the HNRFI is slowly progressing, but many of my constituents, myself included, still hold considerable reservations about the site’s impact on nearby Burbage Common, it’s potential to overburden much of the rural infrastructure in the nearby Fosse Villages and the implications it may have for passenger using the busy Narborough Railway Station.”
Because of the potential national significance, the Planning Inspectorate – rather than local council – will hear arguments for and against it this autumn, before making its recommendations to the Secretary of State later next year.
Management at developer Tritax Symmetry said if it gets permission they expected four trains a day to use it to begin with, which could eventually rise to 16.
Nick Payne, development director at Tritax Symmetry, said they considered seven or eight sites along the railway line, but decided this was the best because it was flat, close to the motorway and not on a flood plain.
He said: “The driving force behind it is that there’s about 9 per cent utilisation of rail track by freight which is predicted to rise to 30 per cent with the green agenda so we are all going to have to move lorries off the road.
“Logistics represents about 14 per cent of the UK economy and the business case for freight at this site is very compelling.
“The cornerstone to this development and the only way this development will come forward is that it is a rail freight terminal on the Felixstowe to Nuneaton line.
“It’s a new terminal so it’s creating new business. Early projections are for a minimum of four trains a day which will rise to 16 trains a day within a matter of years.”
He said freight passing through would include imports for online shopping, much of it going onto HGVs at the Hinckley hub.
He said they were projecting 8,400 jobs would be created – though Blaby District Council leader Coun Terry Richardson has said he was concerned many of the workers would be commuting in from outside the area and adding more traffic to the roads.
Mr Payne also said they would be putting money into landscaping and adding about 50 acres of land to the 200 acre Burbage Common which borders the site.
He said: “I can’t deny that we will be building structures. Whether it’s houses or offices or warehouses, when you are using farmland people do not particularly like it.
“So we have got significant landscaping. You can’t hide the fact that we would be building buildings, but you can design them in such a way that the loss of farmland is hidden by very clever landscaping.”
If approval is granted there would be about two-and-a-half years of infrastructure work including the rail terminal, and the first goods could be ship into within three or four years.
