News

The owners of a popular Suffolk truck park were fighting to save their business last week when they appeared before a public inquiry in a bid to lift a ban on serving the public.

A decision on whether the Orwell Crossing Lorry Park on the A14 can serve food and drink to the general public as well as to truck drivers will be made in the next six weeks. Park boss Karl Rout says that if it loses the appeal, the truckers' restaurant will have to close.

Rout was granted planning permission  to build a restaurant, washing facilities, licensed bar and parking space for 120 trucks in 2002. But a dispute between the lorry park and the Highways Agency (HA) erupted three years later when the government agency claimed that permission was only granted for the site to serve truck drivers, not the general public. It fears improved facilities will encourage more people to use the congested A14.

Now concern is mounting that if the truck park loses its appeal it will be forced to close, leaving Felixstowe clogged with LGVs every time the port has to initiate Operation Stack, which uses the A14 as a truck parking area.

Rout says: "The best part of £50,000 has been spent on the case we really can't afford it at all. But we had to do it."

The Road Haulage Association describes the HA objection as "ill-founded" independent planning consultant Gordon Terry says the local council turned its back on Rout's business and agrees that closure will be disastrous for local  residents: "All the people in the [nearby] Trimley villages are totally pissed off with problems when the port closes."

A Suffolk Coastal District Council spokesman says it was forced to refuse the application: "We can't ignore a direction from the HA. We were hoping that it was an issue that could be resolved.

"At the end of the day, yes, the council would prefer for the business to continue. But it has to continue legally as a lorry park."