THE Town Council have lodged their objection to a Wiltshire planning application that would see the development of a new distribution centre warehouse, with offices and parking on the land near Mill Lane, Heywood.
At the recent highways, planning and development meeting (HP&D) on Monday 15th November, cllr Ketteley said, “This is in the wrong place and will add tremendously to the traffic misery of Heywood not to mention Yarnbrook”.
Cllr Kimmins added, “This really does concern me because if you read the documents, there is to be parking for 131 cars, 38 bicycles and 13 motorcycles. There are also 375 delivery vans that will be frequenting the local area.
“Now, if you think of a driver commuting to work, picking up their bag, driving out to make the deliveries, having then to drive back to keep the vans overnight so they can be loaded and then eventually drive home – that is four vehicle movements, 1,500 a day. I don’t see how our roads can contend with that.
“There will no doubt be lorries on top of the delivery vans. If we had a strategic relief road, yes, this project would be ideal. There is a long list of associated documents – none of which say who [what company] exactly wants this.”
Cllr Gordon King said, “There is the counterpoint that it doesn’t matter what kind of employment there is – everyone needs a job and there are significant levels of unemployment in Westbury. We have to weigh the balance between the benefit and the effect.”
The land north of Mill Lane was allocated for employment use in the Wiltshire Core Strategy and received planning approval for employment use in 2014.
