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Managing Freight Vehicles Through Kent a Highways England Consultation on a Proposal to Create a Permanent Lorry Area Adjacent to the M20 at Stanford

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Managing Freight Vehicles Through Kent a Highways England Consultation on a Proposal to Create a Permanent Lorry Area Adjacent to the M20 at Stanford Managing freight vehicles through Kent A Highways England consultation on a proposal to create a permanent lorry area adjacent to the M20 at Stanford December 2015 Contents 1. About us ...................................................................................................................................... 4 2. Why we are consulting ............................................................................................. 4 3. How you can get involved ................................................................................... 5 4. Background ............................................................................................................................ 6 5. Current traffic management response ................................................. 6 6. Other traffic management methods investigated .................. 8 7. The case for a permanent off-road solution .................................. 8 8. Inappropriate lorry parking ................................................................................. 8 9. How large would a lorry area need to be? ..................................... 9 10. How often would it be used? ........................................................................ 9 11. Where would it be built? .................................................................................. 10 12. What we are proposing .................................................................................... 10 13. What would be on the site? ......................................................................... 13 14. When would it be built? .................................................................................... 15 15. How will it take into account and mitigate potential environmental effects? .................... 15 16. How to get involved ............................................................................................... 18 17. How to respond to this consultation ................................................. 19 ......................................................................................................................... 19 18. Next steps 3 1. About us 2. Why we are consulting Formerly the Highways Agency, Highways A significant cause of congestion and delay on England is the government company charged the roads in Kent is delay at the Port of Dover with operating, maintaining and improving and Eurotunnel, often caused by factors such England’s motorways and major A roads. We as severe weather or disruption to services also manage - and help prevent - incidents on at the terminals. Any delay to ferries and England’s motorways through our Traffic Officer Eurotunnel services causes queues of lorries service. that are too great to be accommodated within those locations. These lorries are currently Highways England manage the same road queued on the M20 using the procedure known network as the Highways Agency. This network as Operation Stack, but this has proved an is around 4,300 miles long. It includes the A2, unsatisfactory method to many stakeholders, M2 - and M26, M20 and A20 – that provide the including residents, local businesses and lorry main access routes to the Port of Dover and drivers. Eurotunnel. In the 2015 Autumn Statement the Government set funds aside to build a permanent area where lorries can wait their turn to cross the Channel and do not cause disruption to local people or the economy. The Government wishes to fully test the case for a permanent lorry area and to understand the views of the community and other stakeholders 4 on the sites and alternative uses set out in this consultation. Highways England will provide any agreed Should this scheme be progressed there will permanent lorry area using the powers available be further formal consultation on the detailed under Section 115 of the Highways Act 1980 proposals, but responding to this consultation is taking account of Section 105A of the Act your best opportunity to have your say on a wider regarding Environmental Impact Assessments. range of possibilities as laid out in this document. This consultation, while taking into account normal good practice and, for example, the 2010 The consultation period runs from 11 December Equality Act, is a non-statutory consultation. 2015 until 25 January 2016. In due course it will be followed by a formal consultation on the preferred site that will include Please respond by one of the methods below: greater detail on its design, layout and operation, and any associated, necessary highway works. Online: www.gov.uk and then search for ‘Managing freight vehicles through Kent’. By email: [email protected] 3. How you can get involved By post: M20 Lorry Area, Highways England, Your views are really important to us. Bridge House, 1 Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4LZ We have prepared a questionnaire response form that accompanies this consultation document; All responses to this consultation must be available online or in hardcopy format. It will help us received by midnight on Monday 25 January 2016. to process and understand your views if you use the questionnaire, referring to those aspects of our If you need a questionnaire response form proposals that you support as well as those you or have any other queries please contact the Highways England Customer Information Line may have questions or concerns about. Alternatively 5 you may respond to us by email or letter. on 0300 123 5000 (Lines are open 24 hours per day, 7 days a week). Localised, small scale incidents – the 4. Background Police, our Traffic Officer Service, Kent County Council Highways and others will deal with On average around 10,800 (5,400 in each direction1) each situation, as appropriate, separately or freight vehicles cross the Dover Straits every day, as jointly, based upon agreed ways of working: this provides the shortest, quickest and cheapest for example to clear accidents or manage route to the continent. In 2014, the Port of Dover congestion. and Eurotunnel handled record numbers of freight vehicles and both predict a potential doubling of Queuing back on to the M20 from the freight vehicles over the next decade2,3. While extra Eurotunnel terminal – Occasionally the parking is being provided within both facilities, queue of lorries from the Eurotunnel toll booths factors such as severe weather, industrial action or extends on to the M20 at Junction 11a. Lorries operational problems disrupt their services from time queue informally on the hardshoulder and the to time. As a consequence queues of lorries that are motorway signals are set to warn approaching too great to be accommodated within Eurotunnel drivers. or the Port of Dover can form. The lorries and other traffic are then managed by many organisations Dover ‘TAP’ (Traffic Assessment Project) including Kent Police, Kent County Council and – Port-bound lorries are queued in the nearside Highways England. lane of the A20 approaching Dover; forming a “rolling road” with lorries entering the town and port as capacity allows. It was introduced as a trial in April 2015 and has been used regularly 5. Current traffic ever since. It responds quickly to short term freight capacity shortage at the port. TAP is management response currently a temporary solution (although plans are being considered to continue its operation), Depending upon the nature, location and scale and it has insufficient capacity to deal with more of the problem, traffic in Kent is managed in the 6 major disruption such as that which causes following ways: Operation Stack to be implemented. Operation Stack causes a lot of disruption to Operation Stack – Introduced in the late residents and businesses in Kent. Other traffic 1980s, Operation Stack is used in response to is unable to use the motorway and local roads occasional major disruption. Historically it has become severely congested. This results in typically been used for a few days a year and disturbance, increased travel times, missed only for a day at a time; accommodating up to appointments, late deliveries and a general about 2,000 lorries4. negative impact on residents, businesses and visitors in Kent. However between January and November 2015 Operation Stack was implemented Use of Manston Airport – Manston is an on a record 32 days. This included three existing, currently vacant, paved area that has implementations each lasting five days; the capacity to accommodate a large amount and on two occasions, both carriageways of Port of Dover traffic. The government were closed to general traffic and used to has agreed with the site owners that it will accommodate over 5,000 lorries5. temporarily be made available to work as part of Operation Stack but recognises that it is not ideally located (for example it cannot serve 1Department for Transport Roll On Roll Off Freight Statistics 2 Eurotunnel) and does not provide any more http://www.doverport.co.uk/about/annual-reports 3http://www.eurotunnelgroup.com/uk/shareholders-and- than a short-term interim relief measure. investors/publications/ 4 Highways England & Kent Police monitoring records The map below shows the main road network in 5Highways England & Kent Police monitoring records Kent, the cross-Channel ports and the location of the current traffic management responses. 7 In doing so, respondents are asked to consider 6. Other traffic whether a permanent lorry area could also management methods contribute to tackling a further major issue investigated involving freight traffic that affects Kent.
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