Logistic hub proposals include lowering the road under ‘most-bashed’ bridge
MORE details have been revealed about a proposed 150-acre industrial hub outside Hinckley that planners hope will stop vehicles smashing into Britain’s most bashed bridge.
The infamous low railway bridge over the A5, near Dodwells island, earned the title last year after it was struck by lorries on average once a fortnight.
Now developer Agrarian Development Holdings has brought forward plans for a logistics hub, with an entrance on the A5 just to the north of the bridge.
As part of the scheme, the firm has offered to lower a 250 metre stretch of the road where it passes under the bridge, increasing the height clearance of the bridge from 4.6 metres to 5.1 metres.
Planning documents for the proposal have now been published on the Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council website.
Approval is needed from three authorities, with applications filed with Rugby Borough Council for the bulk of the development, with Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council for areas of green space and landscaping, and with the Hinckley council for the site access.
Lorries and other vehicles would access the site via a signal-controlled junction, with a pedestrian crossing across the site entrance.
Pedestrians would access the site via a new footpath to be created along the A5, on the opposite side of the road from the development, which would go from Dodwells roundabout down to the entrance.
This would connect to a Toucan crossing across the road, to the immediate north of the new junction.
The industrial park itself will have a shared footpath and cycleway along an internal road.
The existing Veolia site access, on the A5 to the south of the new entrance, would remain in place as it is now. Planners hope the complex will create over 3,000 jobs, with
Hinckley-based logistics group syncreon set to take on one of the warehouses.
An “emergency access” is also proposed on Dodwells roundabout and there are plans to add Toucan crossings to the immediate north of Dodwells island, to improve pedestrian access to bus routes in the area.
Traffic pressure on the A5 is already set to increase, with a scheme recently approved for a service station with a drive-through Starbucks to the north of the junction with the M69, while Amazon is opening a distribution centre in the Hinckley Park industrial estate, to the south of the M69 junction.