Passed! Huge industrial development set for Hadley

The controversial planning for industrial units in Hadley has been passed at the Telford & Wrekin Planning meeting this evening, where residents put forward a case to reject the application.

At a well-attended meeting, Cllr Eileen Callear (LAB) called on the committee to reject the application. She told the officers and councillors present “If you approve this, you are risking putting your name to one of the worst decisions in Telford & Wrekin history.” and received a round of applause.

Steven Bryant, resident of 25 years spoke eloquently about the impact of the development, summarising “This abhorrent, profit-centric, monstrous invasion on the skyline, the peace and the local amenity for hundreds of residents cannot be accepted.”

On behalf of the applicant, Sam Clarke attempted to allay the fears of the residents and explained some of the mitigating changes that have been made to the plans since the last meeting, reiterating the economic benefit to the town as a whole.

Cllr Peter Scott (IND) commented that he can see both sides, but felt ‘that there has not been enough discussion with residents’, but the planning officer responded that there has been sufficient consultation that has taken place. He also discounted further consultation with local councillors as the applicant had made it clear that they wanted a decision on the planning application submitted.

Cllr Thomas Janke (LIBDEM) praised the level detail in the application, but raised a concern about the unknown nature of future occupants of the buildings that could adversely affect the amount of noise created.

The planning officer told Cllr Janke that a noise assessment would have to be carried out and approved for each new and subsequent occupier.

Cllr Dugmore (CON) had concerns about the unknown nature of future occupiers and the hours of operations that could be causing noise and traffic around the local roads which includes Trench Lock Interchange. “I’m surprised that this is a full planning application, it should be an outline one so that when we do know who are going to be the tenants – are they going to be a 24/7 distribution hub, is it going to have refrigeration units running all the time? We just don’t know. If this is passed as a full planning application we won’t have any input into that again.”

The planning officer responded that the the route from Trench Lock to Leegomery Roundabout is the first phase of the Northern Arc Route Study and modelling work has been carried out recently, with significant progress in traffic capacity improvements.

After a short clarification on dates for the work being completed or the designs for the work being completed, Cllr Dugmore reiterated his promise that should he win the Euromillions; “I’ll give you the bloody money to carry out the work”.

The chair, Cllr Stephen Reynolds (LAB) took the vote, but struggled to get a proposer and a seconder, and ended up seconding the proposal himself. The vote was carried in favour resulting in much grumbling from the public gallery.

Pic: Resident Steven Bryant addressing the meeting from the public gallery on the Telford & Wrekin Council Live Stream