Hauliers fear road to ruin

Seventy haulage jobs could be driven out of Newark by a botched roundabout design on the A46, it is claimed.

After six years of talks with the Highways Agency, the owner of the internationally-renowned PA Freight Group, Mr Andrew Morris, has called in the lawyers and is heading for court mediation in January over access to his site.

Under current plans the Highways Agency will block off the main entrance to PA Freight from the existing Lord Ted roundabout at Easter.

The Highways Agency is building a replacement access road from the new Farndon roundabout, but it bypasses the company’s lorry park and turning circle.

Mr Morris, who campaigned for improvements to the A46 on safety grounds, could apply for an injunction to stop completion of the roundabout but said he hoped common sense would prevail.

PA Freight deals with around 100 commercial vehicle movements a day, many of them wide or abnormal loads heading all over the world, that need both the lorry park and turning circle.

“The Highways Agency fails to understand our business,” said Mr Morris, who has spent nearly £250,000 in legal fees trying to safeguard jobs at the site.

“We don’t want anything better, just equal to what we have now.

“An unworkable solution is not a solution at all.

“We’re in siege conditions down here and in severe danger of shutting down.”

Mr Morris said the agency suggested cars, cyclists and pedestrian PA Freight staff and those of two neighbouring companies should share the new access road with HGVs, but he believed that would be impossible on health and safety grounds.

He said the company would also lose its air freight status as sites that handle air freight have to be 100% secure.

“It will cost them up to £800,000 to replace the road with one that we can use but it could be £15m in compensation if their efforts shut us down and they will deprive 70 local people of their jobs,” said Mr Morris.

Mr Morris said the agency had seemed to take his points on board and had paid for an alternative design to be drawn up, but that was later discarded without explanation.

The new access road is nearing completion with its surface laid and lampposts stanchions sunk.

Mr Morris also warned that the A46 at Farndon roundabout would be 8ft higher than the existing road and with the blocking-up of ditches there was an “enormous risk” that his 12-acre site would flood.

The MP for Newark, Mr Patrick Mercer, who recently hosted a meeting between Mr Morris, Treasury lawyers and the agency, said: “This has been going on for years.

“It is a question of official stubbornness mixed with the avoidance of blame by the Highways Agency at all costs.

“The people who are going to suffer are PA Freight and Newark workers.”

The Newark county councillor and deputy portfolio holder for business engagement, Keith Girling said: “The Highways Agency is running roughshod over this business and it is not right.

“I will be bringing all influence that I can to bear to see that it heads the proper procedures.”

The Highways Agency said: “We are committed to ensuring that a reasonable and appropriate solution is found to retain access to PA Freight’s site from the A46 Farndon Roundabout.

“The Highways Agency has met with PA Freight on a number of occasions in order to understand how the design of the access road impacts on their operations and any concerns they have.

“We continue to discuss this with PA Freight and have offered to modify our design to meet their business needs.

“Any modifications we make need to be on an equivalent basis to the access PA Freight currently has, meet the needs of road users and those located near the A46 (land owners, businesses, local residents), and provide value for money for the taxpayers.

“We will continue to develop a solution to resolve this issue.

"We are not currently aware of any restriction that should impact on their operations. We have engaged in extensive discussions with PA freight to better understand how the company operates and what impact any changes to the access road would have - we have asked for information related to the claimed losses from the company and welcome any feedback from PA Freight, so that we can discuss it as part of the ongoing discussions with them.

"We do not have any concerns about the design of the roundabout or the access road. We have agreed our works with the Environment Agency."