£250m greenbelt row

manchesteronline.co.uk, 10th Feb, 2005

PLANS for a huge £250m transport depot on greenbelt land have sparked an angry reaction from families and campaigners.

Up to 150 acres of open land in south Manchester, near Dunham Park, could be swallowed-up if the controversial scheme goes ahead.

The National Trust has said that, if approved, the scheme would be a blot on the landscape.

It "will have a considerable and detrimental visual impact" on the surrounding area, including the Dunham Massey wildlife reserve, which welcomes more than 500,000 visitors every year.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has joined in the row, telling town hall bosses to provide exceptional reasons if they wish to keep the scheme afloat.

Campaigners also claim that once the site is operational it could bring as many as 2,000 heavy wagons and 40 freight trains a day, rumbling along the region's roads and on an old railway line through Timperley and Sale.

John Weightman, 60, of Brookfield Avenue, Timperley, delivered 600 leaflets to homeowners warning them about the scheme.

Gridlock

He said: "A lot of people know absolutely nothing about these plans. There could be as many as 40 freight trains thundering through Timperley and Sale on the old Partington branch line every night and the noise would be appalling. A lot of people will be very badly affected.

"It's not just the trains - all the extra road traffic will bring gridlock to south Manchester. People around here are horrified about what is being proposed and they are very annoyed there hasn't been more publicity about what's going on and the impact it could have."

The site being proposed by Shell and London-based Burford Holdings is off Sinderland Road, in Carrington. It lies between Sale and Partington and would be turned into a freight forwarding yard with warehousing and processing plants - creating as many as 8,000 jobs.

A spokesman said: "It will provide significant investment in a deprived area of Greater Manchester and failure to deliver Trafford Interchange would result in a significant void in both the region's economic and rail freight strategies."

Arthur Jurgens, chairman of the Trafford branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "The whole scheme is a joke - there are no road links, no rail links and there is no site. It seems to me the council's idea of preserving the greenbelt is to concrete over the top of it. I just hope they see sense before it's too late and throw these plans out."

Trafford Borough Council is expected to make a decision on March 1. Council leader Susan Fildes said: "This is a matter which will be discussed by full council and the executive will take a decision based on the outcome.

"We have given the developers time to collect more evidence and we will be determining if that evidence is enough to justify the removal of greenbelt land - that is what it will come down to. It's the only thing on the agenda because the implications are enormous."