Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Minorca Application lacks a through Traffic Assessment

Steve Leary | 21.09.2010 10:40 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Energy Crisis | Birmingham | Sheffield

As the Minorca Opencast Protest Group prepares to put it's case to Leicestershire County Council on why UK Coal's Minorca Surface Mine Application should be rejected it has begun to publish it's detailed objections. This Press Release out lines the first of these.

PR 79) MINORCA APPLICATION LACKS A THROUGH TRAFFIC ASSESSMENT (21/9/10)


Objectors to the Minorca Surface Mine development being proposed by UK Coal plc claim that the proposal lacks a thorough new assessment of the expected impact that Heavy Goods Vehicles will have on local roads.

In the first part of their formal objections document published today, the Minorca Opencast Protest Group (MOPG) claim that the information on traffic contained in UK Coal’s submission documentation is out of date and misleading. Wardle Armstrong on behalf of UK Coal did carry out a traffic survey in 2008 and this information formed part of UK Coal’s first submission in July 2009. However MOPG then pointed out that this survey did not take account of the opening of the new Hanson Brickworks situated on the eastern fringe of Measham and using the same road network as the HGV’s would be using serving the proposed opencast mine. This is a brickworks capable of producing 100,000,000 bricks a year and is responsible for a significant increase in local HGV movements.

However, instead of undertaking a new traffic survey to correctly assess the effect of this new HGV traffic UK Coal’s new submission ‘modelled’ the impact based on data provided by Hanson’s to support their original application and the data collected for the 2008 survey. As the Traffic Assessment Objection states

“Although Gallows Lane is classified as an HGV route a large majority of the traffic using the road was, at least until the Hanson operation started, cars and light commercial vehicles; this is because Gallows Lane links Ashby to Atherstone and Nuneaton: all minor industrial centres. Apart from employees working at the sites all the increase in traffic on Gallows Lane will be very heavy lorries. Accordingly the simple statistics of numbers of traffic movements and projected numbers of traffic movements do not give a representative picture of the impact of the heavy industrial Traffic generated by the Minorca site and the simple numbers of traffic movements do not even take account of the Hanson traffic which comprises entirely eight-wheeler mineral lorries.”

The objection also points out that the Hanson Application’s prediction of an average of 10 HGV movements an hour during the working day does not seem to be supported by witnessing actual HGV movements which seem more that 10 HGV hourly movements, especially during the early morning rush hour.

A number of traffic related issues were raised by MOPG in its first set of objections to do with road safety and three local accident black spots at the junction of Gallows Lane and Measham Road, the sharp bend on Gallows Lane at the bottom of the hill near Fields Farm and lastly the staggered junction where Gallows Lane crosses Leicester / Swepstone Road just east of Measham. These issues have not been addressed in this second submission.
In conclusion the traffic objections state that

“UK Coal and their Agents have failed to collect adequate up to date data and therefore the conclusions from their projected computer modelling are unreliable.

UK Coal and their Agents have failed to address any of the further points which were raised in the traffic assessment section of the document “MOPG Response to Application by UK Coal Mining Ltd September 2009”

The Traffic Assessment part of our set of objections can be downloaded from:

 http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopgs-third-et-of-objections-doc.html#element-500363

Steve Leary for MOPG said

“There is no doubt that if this planning application goes ahead it will lead to a significant increase in local HGV movements to and from the Minorca site off Gallows Lane. If this application is approved, then when this site is working there will be an additional 22 HGV movements an hour on Gallows Lane compared to the situation in 2008. Hanson’s predicted 10 extra HGV movements an hour, though MOPG think this is an underestimate especially during the morning rush hour, coupled with the extra 12 HGV movements predicted by UK Coal plc.

The only modification to the road system suggested is to widen the western last 100 yards of Bosworth Road to enable two lines of traffic to exit north and south onto Gallows Lane. This proposed modification itself is unwelcome to many local residents who do not want changes made that destroy the rural nature of the local network.

In addition, what will become a major route for HGV’s uses, in part, one of the main bus routes taking local students to secondary schools outside of Measham. I know this is a major concern of local parents who fear the consequences of this major increase in local HGV traffic.

As already stated we consider that the Traffic Assessment as submitted is unreliable and does not deal with specific traffic risks issues and therefore we are submitting this as one reason why Leicestershire County Council should reject this application” .

A decision on this application is expected to be made by Leicestershire County Council on Friday October 15th.

END

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS PRESS RELEASE CONTACT:

STEVE LEARY, SPOKESPERSON, MOPG

tel 05601 767981,
email  steve46leary@googlemail.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MOPG PLEASE GO TO:
 http://www.mopg.co.uk or
 http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html

Steve Leary
- e-mail: steve46leary@googlemail.com
- Homepage: http://lhttp://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/minorca-protest.html

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech