News

Pyestock developers to hold community meeting

By Stephen Lloyd
January 28, 2013

DEVELOPERS behind a massive warehouse scheme between Fleet and Farnborough have invited local representatives to a second community liaison meeting.

The meeting, hosted by Pyestock mega depot developers PRUPIM and Prologis, will be held in Fleet on Tuesday, January 29.

It comes as demolition work is set to start on the site, renamed Hartland Park by the applicant.

Kent-based specialist demolition contractors Brown and Mason has been appointed to carry out the work and a representative will attend the liaison meeting to give details of the demolition programme.

The joint developer held a similar community liaison meeting last July.

Paul Weston, senior vice-president at Prologis, said that at the time, the developer agreed to arrange another meeting following the appointment of the demolition contractor.

He added: “We have invited representatives from the county, district, town and parish councils as well as from campaign group SPLAT (Stop Pyestock bLot Act Today) and we very much hope that the meeting will be a useful forum for discussion.”

The developer has also submitted an application to display two timber mounted, free-standing panel boards advertising the depot site.

One board will be at the roundabout junction with the A327 Summit Avenue in Farnborough and the other at the entrance to Hartland Park, at the junction off Bramshot Road.

In a letter to Hart District Council, agent Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners said outline and detailed planning permission for the redevelopment of the site was granted in September 2009.

It added: “While economic conditions have remained difficult since the grant of the original consent, there are signs of improvement and it remains the case that there is market interest in Hartland Park.

“This interest has increased over the past six months but as yet this has not translated into precise requirements.

“Within this context it is considered appropriate to now increase the marketing efforts to maximise prospects of securing occupier interest at the site, and as typical for such development, an on site presence is considered essential.

“This application for advertisement consent is an important part of the ongoing process of the continued marketing and it is hoped will help raise the profile of the site and secure firm occupier interests.”

Mr Weston explained: “These two boards will be part of a coordinated campaign through which we aim to bring new jobs to Farnborough and Fleet.”

PRUPIM and Prologis have been given more time to implement their controversial proposal, despite objections from residents who said the original application relied on assumptions and surveys that are out of date.

More than 12,000 people objected to the Pyestock scheme, warning it would wipe out the green ‘lung’ between Fleet and Farnborough and create thousands of lorry movements on the area’s already over-stretched roads.

But PRUPIM and Prologis said it would create up to 1,600 jobs and clean up the site.

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Most recent user comments 15 of 15

I agree that few of the jobs at the new depot are likely to be filled by locals, meaning even more traffic congestion as people from outside the area commute in to work.

The congestion on the M3 will also mean that lorries traveling to and from the depot will use smaller roads to try to beat the queues, so expect to see large lorries thundering through the local towns and B roads so they can leave or join the M3 away from Farnborough.

The way that permission for this development was achieved was nothing short of a disgrace - no wonder few people have any faith in democracy or politicians in this country any more.

AC2009
06/02/2013 at 14:19

Totally agree with pjt and behindthesun.

The wages will be pitched at a level way below the cost of living round here, so you can be sure the vast majority of the jobs will go to you know who. And the employers will know very well that there will be scramble for these jobs no matter how poor the pay is.

One giveaway that highlights how pathetically inadequate the local infrastructure is is the part time traffic lights on the junction 4A slip road. The only other place I can think of that has these is the M6 through the middle of Birmingham. Luckily I drive southbound on the M3 for my commute but I do see the northbound tailbacks almost every day.

When you look at pjt's list of developments on the horizon then its easy to see why some born and raised locally want to up sticks and leave. Family commitments mean we are likely to be around for another 10 or 15 years but we have already decided there are better futures elsewhere after then.

Dan B
30/01/2013 at 21:25

County Councillor John Wall: "It's important to remember that planning permission has been granted so that "battle" is over, and has been lost."

That's why the whole notion of local democracy is just more political flannel as R Cook's comment demonstrates beautifully.

It's taking longer than we hoped but my family ius in agreement: we all want to leave the area which we once loved so much and which offered a quality of life which planners are hell bent on destroying. QEB, Deepcut, Aldershot Urban Expansion, Hitches Lane, Pyestock, Farnborough Airport - and hardly any investment in infrastructure!

pjt
30/01/2013 at 18:36

What they should do with the site is data centres. Make their investment in electrical infrastructure to support that. Big players can't sell space in Slough area quick enough. Farnborough/Fleet is perfect distance from London for second site, or even twin with Slough. Generally low numbers of personnel at these sites generate low traffic movements.

BehindTheSun
30/01/2013 at 07:09

It makes me laugh to see them resorting to advertising billboards. People don't drive past and decide "this is where I'll build my depot". The developer has knocked on every bodies door with a business that might need one and come up without a customer, likely because of well known massive local opposition and the site is in a poor road traffic location. Who else has sat with me on the M3 queuing Monday and Tuesday this week?Imagine the additional chaos with hundreds of lorries attempting to leave and arrive in that. But its an old argument and one not deemed valid at the time by the experts who don't have to the use the roads or the recent revised traffic survey which persisted in not recognising the issue.

BehindTheSun
30/01/2013 at 06:52

It's important to remember that planning permision has been granted so that "battle" is over, and has been lost.

The next stage is demolition and the developer is looking to get on with that. An important, but not that obvious, reason is safety. There have been at leadt 700 break ins over the past two years and there is concern that somebody (OK a trespasser!) is going to get hurt. It's going to take about a year and we learned what they're intending regarding noise, dust, communication with local residents, etc,

County Councillor John Wall - Farnborough South Division (@CllrJohnWall), Farnborough, Hampshire
29/01/2013 at 21:47

Also our gain maybe someone else’s loss. If a large corporate centralises its operation in Pystock, jobs elsewhere will be lost. if several depots are consolidated in this one large depot then more jobs may be lost across the south - maybe 2,000 jobs across the south becomes 1,700. This is why businesses consolidate and centralise - to cut the wage bill. This means a net loss to the economy in jobs and tax revenue.

Will wages be high enough to allow workers to buy one of the new homes, live locally and benefit the local economy? Will jobs be filled by people out of the area or perhaps by the next wave of migrants to the UK?

What about the environment – what can I say that has not been said. If I understand it correctly a distribution hub such as this is exempt from current light pollution legislation. Impact from lorry movements is just the tip of the iceberg. Pyestock is next to the airport and ideal for freight (this will mean more big planes); the estimated lorry movements do not account for small vans and cars

If the jobs do not get filled by existing locals, if there is a likelihood of net job losses to the national economy, if our local environment and quality of life is to be harmed - what's in it for us?

DJM87 - there are other areas of the country that need employment far more than hours.

pjt
29/01/2013 at 20:06

John Denham was talking about the importance of local democracy on the The Sunday Politics (BBC 27/01/13).

I laughed out loud. You could not make it up (he was the one who ultimately rubber stamped this scheme).

I applaud John Wall doing his best to mimimise the effects on the local area, but I will save my time where local democracy is concerned in future. All those people turning up to the Princes Hall, all the debates, all the objections, council time and money, SPLAT campaign, reports etc. for it to get waved through by a single bloke in Whitehall.

R Cook
29/01/2013 at 12:31

Is the Pyestock site not also a brownfiled site? Something needs to be done with it and I would think only commercial,industrial or residential solutions are possible. I thought the issue was simply the number of vehicles likely to be using the roads between the site and the motorway. I use the neighboring land for dog walking and would be opposed to large scale movements, but what is the alternative ?

SpongeBob NoPants, Farnborough
29/01/2013 at 11:10

DanB: By contrast up here in Sheffield (as an example of somewhere 'up north'), housing seems cheap, there's already a large industrial economy (the mega depot isn't strictly industrial activity but its sort of development would fit in nicely in the "Steel City"'s industrial areas) and unemployment is almost certainly higher than anywhere in Hampshire- or the Home Counties for that matter.

More importantly, there's plenty of disused brownfield land and the road infrastructure to cope, which has to be better than building the Pyestock depot on woodland linked to the motorway only by back roads.

I'm sure the same could be said for many towns and cities away from the south east that could do with a large employer or two moving in.

BlisteringBarnacles! , Sheffield / Farnborough
28/01/2013 at 21:36

I've had an invitation to the meeting and will be there. It's important to minimise the effects on the local area.

County Councillor John Wall - Farnborough South Division (@CllrJohnWall), Farnborough, Hampshire
28/01/2013 at 18:05

Sadly, I doubt most of these warehouse jobs will pay anywhere near whats needed to buy one of the thousands of houses about to go up.

Farnborough, Fleet, Farnham, Aldershot, Camberley and Yateley are all overdeveloped already.

Dan B
28/01/2013 at 17:56

Cant agree more with both of you, but slugger the only problem with moving a regional distrubtion centre up north is it is no longer regional. Plus we do need to give people jobs in this area, with all of the houses being built.

DJM87
28/01/2013 at 17:51

This project should never have been approved, let alone allowed to continue years after the developer put it on seeming indefinite hold.

BlisteringBarnacles! , Sheffield / Farnborough
28/01/2013 at 12:50

Wouldn't it be a better idea to build something like this up North where the 1,600 jobs would bring some benefit to the high unemployment areas?

We already have far too much development in this area. The roads are awful now so what's it going to be like after 1000's more lorry movements every week?