Concrete facility given the go-ahead by council

OUTLINE planning permission has been granted for a new precast concrete manufacturing facility on the site of Westbury’s former cement works and is due to begin operation in 2019.

Tarmac, the UK’s largest supplier of construction materials, submitted an outline planning application to Wiltshire Council in November for the new manufacturing facility on the site of the old cement works and chimney, which was demolished in 2016.

During the initial phases of the application, concerns were raised, by local residents, about the increase of traffic that this new site would bring to the area, especially the A350.

This is due to the transportation of the finished product, sand and aggregate needed to make the concrete slabs for high-speed rail tracks, will have to be delivered by road as there is no rail track at Tarmac’s Halecombe quarry.

In response to the concerns, Wiltshire Highway Authority requested that Tarmac submit detailed comments on the transport assessment and address the issues raised.

In January, the company carried out  traffic  surveys  to determine the  impact  of  development  generated traffic on the roads during peak hour periods.  The survey found the  percentage  impact  of  traffic  on  the  A350 is no more than 3% during peak hour periods,  which is not considered  to  be  significant.

The next stage of the application will see a ‘Reserved Matters’ application to be made to the Local Planning authority. This will feature smaller details such as the scale of the development; the layout of the development; the external appearance of the development; the landscaping of the site and the means of access to the site, which will need to be approved before work is carried out.

With this in mind, the company reports the proposed slab track manufacturing facility is planned to come into operation during the fourth quarter of 2019, although it is noted that this date is indicative at this stage and subject to change.