Business park plan traffic fears raised
Plans to push ahead with a new £8.5 million business park in Staffordshire have been criticised by a parish council chairman who fears it could chaos traffic chaos.
Redhill Business Park will create 2,500 highly-skilled jobs.
The site, off the A34 near Stafford, was given the nod by Stafford Borough Council's planning committee after the application had previously been deferred twice. Seven plots of between 50,000sq ft and 200,000sq ft will be developed to attract research and firms to the site.
However concerns have been raised by Creswell Parish Council to the plans for the land, which is owned by Staffordshire County Council.
Chairman Richard Thomas has said the surrounding roads are not equipped to deal with the extra traffic and the plans are not clear enough.
Councillor Thomas said: "It is a mixture of shock and real sadness.
"Despite all of the problems raised and the planning committee's near unanimous decision last time that it considered the proposed A34 access to be dangerous as to be completely unacceptable, it has been permitted that the very same application goes through with unaltered access — it beggars belief. The committee have effectively given Staffordshire County Council a blank cheque to do whatever they like on this land, whenever and however they might wish to do so.
"Other developers in our area are forced to jump through hoop after hoop in order to be able to get planning consent.
"It appears that none of these rules apply in this case."
Ben Adams, cabinet member for skills and employment at the county council said that the authority aims to get things moving as soon as possible to ensure new jobs are being created at the earliest opportunity on the site.
