Green growth, or destruction of the countryside? Work gathers pace at giant rail terminal between Wolverhampton and Stafford

But probably not for much longer. Over the coming decade, the site around the M6 junction at Gailey will become one of the largest development sites in the West Midlands with the construction of a huge rail freight terminal.

According to the developer, the West Midlands Interchange will be one of the largest, most environmentally conscious
logistics developments in the UK, taking thousands of lorries off the roads, creating 8,500 jobs, and boosting the regional economy by £1 billion over the next 15 years.

Carol Owens, who lives in the nearby village of Coven, takes a very different view.

"This monstrosity will impact Coven, Brewood, Calf Heath and Penkridge to name but a few," she says.

"The work has just begun on the A449 and it looks truly awful. There have been dozens of trees chopped down and it's changed the once lovely landscape forever."

It's still early days, but as our drone footage shows, work is now well and truly underway for the controversial scheme which will eventually create a huge rail depot the size of 430 football pitches at the site between Wolverhampton and Stafford. 

Land next to the Calf Heath reservoir has now been stripped of its natural vegetation, in anticipation of the first stage, which will see almost two million square foot of warehouse space built on the site. But the real work will begin once the warehouse space is 25 per cent occupied, when the plans will require work to start on a new rail terminal which will link up with the West Coast Mainline.

The plans were approved by then transport secretary Grant Shapps in May 2020, a decision branded 'idiotic' by constituency MP Sir Gavin Williamson.

"This is an idiotic decision which has left me feeling absolutely sickened. It has shown no regard or consideration for the thoughts of local people," he said at the time.

"The only one decent element of it is that they have made conditions about the fact that they have to build the rail interchange at the early stage of the development." .

The site will be about a third bigger than the i54 business park near Wolverhampton which is home to the Jaguar Land Rover engine plant.

A new road linking the A5 and the A449, which can be used by the public, will be built aimed at cutting out pinch points at the Gailey roundabout and Station Drive. There are three entrances and exits to the site from a new roundabout on the A5 between the Gailey roundabout and the junction 12 of the M6, a new roundabout on Stafford Road, and Vicarage Road.

However, in the more immediate term, the roadworks associated with the construction phase will cause traffic disruption. At the moment, the A449 Stafford Road will be subject to single lane closures in both directions until the summer, while work on new laybys is being completed.

Four Ashes Ltd, the company behind the scheme, says every freight train that uses the site will take between 43 and 77 heavy lorries off the road. This will, in turn, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70 per cent, reducing air pollution and improving the environment, the company claims. 

It adds that it will create 109 acres of greenery and open space across two new community parks, and says that 36 per cent of the site will be occupied by what it describes as 'green infrastructure'. This has done little to pacify critics, who point out they were quite satisfied with the  green space that occupied the site before.

They are also unimpressed by the claim that the scheme will create 8,500 new jobs, pointing out that unemployment in the area is already low. They suggest that the beneficiaries will be people commuting to the area from elsewhere, adding to traffic in the vicinity.

"The scale of the proposal is huge," says pressure group Stop the West Midlands Interchange. "Some 290 hectares of green belt would be destroyed to site the huge warehouses, new road and rail links and commercial parking.

"The suggested thousands of workers would need to be bused in from elsewhere. Thousands of additional heavy lorries and vans would clog the already bursting local road system, with two new road islands with HGV lanes to generate traffic jams on the A5 and A449."

Concerns have also been voiced about noise from HGV movements, reversing sirens, rail shunting, lifting cranes, together with the warning sirens used for industrial traffic.

It is estimated more than 3,000 lorries and 6,000 cars and vans will travel to and from the site every day once fully running by 2035. 

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who recently voiced his frustration at 'Nimbys' and 'blockers' who stood in the way of growth, will presumably look forward to the development being up and running, achieving the double whammy of bringing jobs and money into the region, and reducing carbon emissions at the same time. For the villagers angry at seeing their green belt torn up by excavators, this will be scant consolation.

"We lost our case but l would do it again in a heartbeat," says Carol Owens.

"If l hadn't have joined the campaign against the interchange then l wouldn't have been able to sleep at night. RIP greenbelt."