Mrs. Anne Main MP

Member of Parliament for St Albans

House of Commons

London, SW1A 0AA

21^st April 2008

Rail freight fight update – April 2008

As promised, I am keeping you up to date with the latest developments concerning the Radlett rail freight proposal. In December 2007, a decision for a strategic rail freight interchange (SRFI) was granted at Bexley in Kent. As I mentioned in my last letter, I have already challenged the Secretary of State for Transport in Parliament to take this decision into account when deciding the outcome of the Radlett proposal.

However, I am pleased to say that the beginning of this month, after consideration, St Albans District Council made further submissions to the Inspector, adding their weight to the comments I expressed in Parliament. In its submission, the Council noted the Bexley decision and reiterated objections to the Radlett site, arguing the case that the “need” for an additional SRFI was now further diluted by the Bexley decision.

The Government has only ever expressed the need for 3 or 4 SRFIs around London and since then two have been granted in the Eastern Region. It is inconceivable and illogical for Helioslough to keep maintaining the “need” for an additional SRFI in the Eastern Region area.

Some residents have expressed concern to me that the Bexley site decision actually weakens our defence against the Helioslough proposal. I do not feel that this is the case. Whilst Bexley was also a green belt site, other aspects of the application were not at all similar to the Radlett proposal. Indeed, a hotly contested part of the Radlett proposal was the alternative sites evaluation, which we believe was not correctly carried out, and was a key part of our objections.

Bexley Council, on the other hand, did not contest their site evaluation and relied strongly on its green belt status as a defence. Other factors surrounding the Bexley proposal weighed the decision in favour of the developers and green belt status was not sufficient alone to outweigh, in the Governments eyes, the positive benefits of this site.

However, I maintain we have a much stronger case. Our site is in the green belt, but it is accessed off local roads, does not have a pool of locally available employees, it has significant issues of access to the rail network, and, crucially, it did not score highly in the site evaluation.

The argument against this development has become even stronger, so I hope that the recommendation from the Inspector to the Government, which is due shortly, will now take account of this new development, and that he will recommend that the Government refuses the appeal. This is the wrong proposal, in the wrong place, and we expect the Government to listen. I will keep fighting until a decision is made.

With best wishes,

Anne Main MP

Conservative MP for St Albans