Logistics depot is not right for Colthrop

PTARMIGAN Group is proposing a new logistics depot in Midgham adjacent to, and to the east of, the Gables Way industrial estate in Thatcham (also known as Colthrop Business Park).

Anyone who lives in Thatcham knows that the last thing Thatcham needs is yet another logistics centre.

For years lorries have pounded the A4 to the west to and from the Robin Hood roundabout; or to the east between Thatcham and Theale along a non-trunk road for 10 miles before accessing the UK motorway network at Theale (M4 J12).

Southbound traffic adversely affects the people of Newbury as well as Thatcham.

We need to decrease the volume of HGVs travelling through these residential areas, not increase it. The site proposed would be ideal for high tech businesses users, with a real chance for Thatcham residents to walk to work.

If the council’s draft Local Plan maintains its intention to build 2,500 more homes in north east Thatcham then it will be really important that the new residents should have the option of walking to work.

A logistics centre will cover a vast area, but will provide relatively few employment opportunities. Instead it will load yet more HGVs on to a completely sub-standard and unsuitable single-access road – the A4 east or the A4 west.

Yet more lorries will continue to thunder day and night (it really is 24/7) along Chapel Street in Thatcham and past residential homes from the Robin Hood roundabout to the Thatcham Crematorium roundabout.

This latter roundabout is proposed to be used to ‘turn’ eastbound lorries from the new depot so the volume of traffic on the crematorium roundabout will be increased by 44-tonne HGVs exiting the depot and grinding around the roundabout to travel east. Logistics depots should be near the motorway network, not 10 miles away through residential areas.

I hope that WBC highways officers will join many councillors and the public in vigorously opposing this frankly ‘barmy’ plan.

OWEN JEFFERY

Liberal Democrat councillor for Thatcham Central ward West Berkshire Council and Thatcham Town Council