Dear Residents,
We are still receiving dozens of emails from concerned, angry and frustrated residents concerning the Highways England Consultations . We are posting another on our site to let you all know that you aren't alone in the fear that we all have of having 250 acres of perfectly good farm land stolen from us to build the disastrous DAMIAN COLLINS LORRY PARK.
S&DRA
This is what our resident has to say:
I visited the last Ashford presentation by Highways England, (as the ill advised government response in dealing with Operation Stack). The £250m Lorry Park currently proposed at Stanford North will accommodate 3,100 lorries in rare emergency situations. Additional 24/7 parking is also proposed with a permanent, fee-paying 500 lorry, "Overnight-stop facility", planned to cope with the current "Anti-social Lorry parking problems".
Approximately 20 HE staff were in attendance, politely and very cautiously offering answers and advice. Interestingly, it was apparent that none of the staff involved, lived in the area, or indeed had first hand knowledge of the reality of Operation Stack. It soon became obvious to members of the public, as well as commercial freight drivers present, that this proposal was totally flawed and an unacceptable waste of tax payers money. (Similarly experienced in recent years, by the un-required and expensive Ramsgate Ferry tunnel). With plans already in discussion for a second Thames crossing, traffic flow could also increase onto the M2 and very little was said about Manston airport, and its upgraded road infrastructure.
In our discussion group, I proposed that the whole country should be 'networked' county by county, thereby sharing the responsibility of this national burden, in planning smaller individual regional parking facilities. Developing technologies already offer the opportunity to rapidly communicate with freight drivers, whose GPS locations are tracked by HE cameras networked throughout the UK. Commercial drivers have travel bookings monitored and thereby could be sent advanced information about delays and Channel crossings. This new proposal would thereby prevent a bottleneck situation developing, similar to any "battle or riot" situation, by breaking down the potential problem into smaller and more manageable convoys, (sadly, already experienced in past disaster scenarios).
The management of such an enormous freight park itself, with all its own very questionable logistics, raised even more potential hazards and additional chaos. Security fencing, lighting, washing and toilet facilities as well as catering, fuel and staffing/policing. All to be funded by whom? Brexit, itself, will even raise more skeletons and demons of Customs and Excise and Migration, not to mention that, once built and established, what next? What also, becomes of the poor frustrated and blighted residents, tourists and coaches, all innocently caught up in such rare events, often caused by illegal French militant activities? Some European rogue drivers, are already using illegal methods of dodging cameras and law enforcement. Why then, should Kent be saddled by this unworkable and financially wasteful 'knee-jerk' reaction, in using a sledge hammer to crack a Kent cob-nut?
Please, please, become pro-active and make your views heard, support the SOS Kent. Email, write, protest, but don't allow this unacceptable development in your beloved county of Kent. We were once proudly known as the "Garden and Gateway to England", possibly your families gave their lives. What will you do?
