Rail freight hub plans resubmitted
Developers Tritax Symmetry have resubmitted their application for the Hinckley National Rail Freight Interchange (HNRFI) to the Planning Inspectorate.
They withdrew their original application at the start of the month as the Planning Inspectorate required them to carry out further work on the greenhouse gas emissions and embodied carbon from the proposed highway works.
The resubmission restarts the acceptance phase. Blaby District Council will now have 14 days to again comment on whether it believes the developer’s consultation on the plans was adequate.
The Council had already sent in an adequacy of consultation document the first time Tritax put the plans into the Planning Inspectorate. A revised version will be submitted this time around.
The Planning Inspectorate will then have until 14 April to decide whether to accept the application. If the application is accepted, the Planning Inspectorate will begin assessing the developer’s plans. There will be a six-month-long examination phase, including hearings, from approximately August this year to February next year.
The scheme, earmarked for 662 acres of land between the M69 and the Leicester to Birmingham railway line, falls mainly within the boundary of Blaby District Council, south-west of Elmesthorpe village.
The scheme is of such scale and national importance that the application for its development will be ultimately decided by the Secretary of State for Transport. A decision is expected in the summer of next year.
Blaby District Council is a statutory consultee in the process, making comments and raising concerns.
The Council will be carefully scrutinising the developer’s proposals and commenting on the scale, scope and location of the scheme and how it will affect local residents and the District as a whole.
Tritax Symmetry are already aware the Council has significant concerns about the impact the development will have on the District.
The scheme is part of the Government’s long-standing plan to divert container transport traffic off major roads and onto the rail network for the bulk of its journey to and from major seaports.
To provide for this the HNRFI will incorporate new rail sidings from the existing Leicester to Birmingham lines to accommodate up to 16 trains per day, of up to 775 m in length which can link into warehousing and storage areas.
The warehousing and ancillary buildings themselves are expected to total up to 850,000m2 and reach up to 28 metres in height, and there will also be a lorry park, energy services area and associated landscaping with new access routes, a major new link road from the M69 to the B4668/A47 Leicester Road at Hinckley and southern facing slip roads at Junction 2 of the M69.
The Council will continue to keep residents and our website updated on the progress of this application.