News

Plans for a huge multimodal freight depot on the edge of a pretty Kent village have stalled because developers did not provide essential traffic impact information. A decision was due to be made by Maidstone Borough Council for the vast road-rail freight depot next week but the deadline has had to be extended by up to six months because the Highways Agency (HA) is unhappy  with the information received.

Kent International Gateway (KIG) wants to build a 382,000m2 intermodal facility near Bearsted, reducing LGV movements on the M20 by making use of the Ashford to Maidstone East line to shift freight by rail. An estimated 3,000 jobs would also be created. The application has proven controversial, with the planning authority receiving thousands of comments Maidstone Borough Council confirms that "the great majority were objections".

The HA says that due to the lack of information it has been unable to provide advice to the authority. A spokesman adds: "We encourage any developer to put in place a travel plan or a traffic impact assessment, and in this case it doesn't look like there was one. We had some meetings with the developers we've been specific about what we require. Why they proceeded before this was all finalised I really couldn't say."

Maidstone Borough Council says the planning application already consists of more than 20  documents including a large, two-volume environmental impact assessment. A council spokesman denies that the application has been poorly constructed, adding: "It's a huge application, absolutely massive." AXA Real Estate Investment Managers, the company behind KIG, did not respond as CM went to press.