I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the Speaker’s Office for helping me to secure this debate on the first day back. This debate is of vital importance to my constituents in St Albans and indeed in the neighbouring and nearby constituencies.
In 2014, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government decided that a hugely damaging strategic rail freight interchange should be built on the site of the former Radlett Aerodrome, next to the small close-knit community of Park Street in my constituency. What it means if it goes ahead is that 3.5 million square metres of green belt—the size of 490 football pitches—will be converted into a massive rail and lorry park with warehouses, lorries, container storage, HGV parking and so on. It will bring thousands of heavy goods vehicles per day, and huge disruption to the surrounding roads and commuter rail links.
Although that decision was made in 2014, it has suddenly been thrown back into the limelight because our local council is now being held hostage by this Government’s planning system. In effect, the council has been told by planning inspectors to drop its opposition to the monstrosity of a freight terminal or Whitehall will take away its powers to decide where to build homes. That is no choice at all.
A freight terminal in this location has always been a bad idea, but there are also new and compelling reasons why it should be reviewed and why the plans for the freight terminal should scrapped. Let us start with what the Government have told the people of St Albans so far. First, the Government say that they want to protect the green belt. That is great, but almost all of St Albans district is designated green belt. Secondly, the Government also say that St Albans District Council needs to build more than 14,000 additional homes in the next 16 years —that is more than 900 homes per year. Thirdly, as well as accommodating almost 15,000 homes on the green belt, the Government also want to build this massive interchange, the size of 490 football pitches, on the green belt. So here is the rub: it is simply not possible to meet the Government’s housing targets, accept a freight interchange and protect the green belt. It is just not possible.
Let us start with the green belt. As I have said, most of the St Albans district is green belt land. Every new strategic site identified for new development has to be evaluated to ensure that it does the least damage to the green belt. Initially, a decade ago, the Conservative Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said that the terminals did not fit with the development plan in the area. He said that it was inappropriate to build a freight interchange on the green belt, and on behalf of the Conservative Government he said that the green belt would be “safe in our hands”. He even highlighted the likely harm it would cause to the landscape and ecology. But after controversial lobbying of the Department by the developer, which was the subject of a complaint to the Cabinet Secretary by my predecessor, and despite his own objections, he went ahead, and in 2014 approved the freight terminal anyway—even while admitting the violation of the green belt in his official decision. In that decision, he said that this
“proposal would have a substantial impact on the openness of the Green Belt, that it would result in significant encroachment into the countryside, that it would contribute to urban sprawl and that it would cause some harm to the setting of St Albans.”
Just a month ago, the Government published their White Paper, “Planning for the future”, and reiterated their commitment to protecting the green belt. So my first question to the Government tonight is: in the light of their White Paper, “Planning for the future”, which commits to protecting the green belt, is it still Government policy to sacrifice 490 football pitches-worth of green belt for a monster lorry and rail park on this site? The Government changed course in 2014 and they can, and must, change course again.
Let us turn to the local plan. The local plan was approved by the council, on a cross-party basis, in 2018 under the former Conservative administration. That administration submitted a local plan that had suggested building 2,300 homes on this site instead of a rail freight terminal. The argument was that the rail freight terminal could perhaps be stopped if we tried to build some homes there instead. But the plan was suspended in January this year by Government inspectors. The inspectors have told the new Liberal Democrat administration that the site must be withdrawn for housing or the council will lose its ability to decide where to build any homes at all. If the council is prevented from keeping the site as green belt and from exploring the potential to build there, then the Government must revise the housing targets down or accept that it is on their watch that even more green belt will have to be sacrificed to meet their housing targets.
My second question to the Government is: do they accept that it is an unacceptable state of affairs that under the current planning regime the planning inspector can, and indeed may have no other choice but to, threaten to take away a local council’s powers to determine where housing should be built unless it stops fighting a Government-imposed freight terminal in one spot?
Then there is the disruption to rail commuters. Thousands of St Albans residents are Thameslink commuters. We have faced years of disruption, most acutely in 2018, when the botched introduction of a new rail timetable caused misery for thousands of daily commuters for months. Residents are rightly concerned about the capacity and the ability of the midland main line to accommodate the proposed long and heavy freightliner trains. How will they do that without adversely affecting the now mostly reliable operation of the passenger timetables of both Thameslink and East Midlands Trains services?
Then there is the rail infrastructure itself. The infrastructure work needed for this freight terminal is huge. Network Rail will need to dig deep into the ground to enlarge the height of tunnels—for example, at Elstree and near Kentish Town—and it will need to build a whole new underpass that comes off a spur from the down slow line into London, used by commuters, to access the depot. Many people just do not believe that, in engineering terms, this is even possible. There is also the risk that the rail element fails altogether, as it did in Alconbury, where the loop could not be made to work for engineering reasons. If the rail element fails, residents are worried that this site will simply become a giant lorry depot, with the implications for the infrastructure being environmentally damaging and creating congestion on the main road transport artery of the M1.
My third question for the Government is: when will they secure and publish firm and detailed plans from Network Rail about how it will manage the build and the operation of new freight carriages without disruption to passengers? Will the Government demand those plans from Network Rail and ensure that they are published before any works on the site can progress? My fourth question is: will the Government confirm that if the rail element does fail and cannot be built, as happened in Alconbury, the site will not be able to operate as a giant lorry depot?
Let me turn to the impact on roads and local village communities. Even under the existing plans, there will be additional lorry traffic on already busy roads. These terminals work on tight collection and delivery slots. Meeting those slots, and drivers’ hours requirements, will see many lorries parked up locally so that they can meet their slot. We already have issues with the smaller London Colney Riverside distribution hub, where drivers park overnight in lay-bys, using the roadside hedges and woodland as a toilet. Local residents can only see things getting worse. What assessment have the Government made of the impact on the village communities in my constituency of drivers, for example, parking overnight in lay-bys and using the roadside hedges as a toilet? Some have argued that the local impact could be countered by having a new M25 exit for rail freight, to avoid some of the traffic impact on local roads, but that has already been vetoed by Highways England.
There is then the impact of Brexit and the Government’s new freeports policy. The Government say that they will announce the location of up to 10 post-Brexit freeports by the end of this year so that they can begin operating in 2021. My next question is: in the light of the Government’s plan for freeports, do the previous freight distribution routes still apply, or will the proposed freeports make the rail-freight interchange redundant?
We also need to explore the effect of the London Gateway container terminal that has opened on the Thames since the strategic rail freight interchange was first proposed. It will have altered freight-distribution networks in the south-east. Has it changed the need for a terminal in St Albans? Indeed, the plans for Howbury Park have been dropped because of it. The Secretary of State said that the London Gateway site, developed since the rail freight interchange in Howbury Park was first identified,
“has the potential to provide an alternative development option for the provision of a SRFI to serve the same part of London and the South East as the appeals proposal.”
In the light of the finding in relation to a rail-freight interchange at Howbury Park, can the Minister confirm what assessment has been or will be made of whether the London Gateway might now also provide alternative freight capacity for the proposed SRFI at the former Radlett aerodrome site in my constituency?
For 12 years, local residents, local campaign group STRiFE—Stop the Rail Freight Exchange—the St Albans Civic Society, Hertfordshire MPs of different political persuasions and campaigners of all political parties and none have fought to stop this monstrosity. That is even without thousands of Thameslink and East Midlands commuters getting up in arms.
A Government-imposed strategic rail freight interchange in Park Street would occupy 490 football pitches of green belt. As a result, this land cannot be protected as green belt, cannot be used for housing and is unlikely to even work as a railway interchange, leaving it to just become a massive lorry park. A rail freight interchange would bring untold disruption to our village life and road and rail networks. It would require massive engineering in Thameslink tunnels to the south, permanently disrupt commuter lines and clog village roads with parked up lorries. Current Government policy holds this piece of land hostage. I am calling on the Government to stop the rail freight and let local people decide how they want to use their land.