Wigan Council is urged to oppose a 500-acre rail freight terminal plans for borough farmland
Wigan Council is to debate whether to approve or block a huge freight terminal proposed for a rural area of the borough
Councillors in Wigan have moved to oppose a plan which could see swathes of farmland lost to a huge rail hub.
A motion is set to be debated at full council which calls for the council to “formally state our opposition to the proposed Tritax rail interchange.”
Tritax plan a 8.2M sq ft new strategic rail freight interchange on a 500-acre site close to Lowton on the Wigan/St Helens/Warrington border.
Campaigners against the Intermodal Logistics Park North (ILP North) plan believe calling it a rail interchange is misleading as much of the operation would be carried out by road.
If it is built, residents claim they could see 1,200 HGV journeys per day to and from the site, which sits between Lowton, Culcheth, and Croft.
ILP North say the interchange was “nationally significant” and would support the movement of freight from road to rail.
Wigan councillors Dane Anderton and Jenney Gregory have put forward a motion which notes that the revised Wigan local plan has “taken action to protect green belt land across the borough from inappropriate development, including removing land west of Winwick Lane, Lowton, from proposed development.”
The motion adds: “The proposed Tritax rail interchange would extend across land within both Wigan and St Helens but with the most effects felt in our area of Lowton.
“The council believes that the proposed development would have a significant impact on Lowton and the surrounding communities, while offering insufficient direct benefit to those communities to justify the loss of protected land.”
The motion seeks to formally state the council’s opposition to the proposed Tritax rail interchange insofar as it affects land within Wigan and impacts upon the communities of Lowton and the surrounding area.
Wigan Council had initially included the portion of land that fell within its boundaries in its current draft local plan. However, the allocation was one of four sites removed in the latest update.
The local authority said at the time of the update that it now felt it could meet employment needs in the borough without using this land.
ILP North is classed as a nationally significant infrastructure project, so the Planning Inspectorate will evaluate the plans with the final decision made by the minister for transport.
More public consultation is planned for the project in 2027.
IPL North said the terminal would deliver ‘significant’ economic benefits for Wigan, Warrington and St Helens and the wider region.
It estimates it would support up to 6,000 jobs.
Earlier this week, Lane Head South Residents Group member Gareth Edwards said: “Of course, they call it a strategic rail freight interchange, but actually the biggest concern is it’s really a road-to-rail interchange.
“It’s not as if trains come in and then unload and other trains take them on. The area will be swamped with traffic, particularly HGV traffic coming into the area to deliver into the rail freight interchange and also to take away from the rail freight interchange as well.
“It actually has highway impacts up to maybe 10 miles away, and it’s just the enormity of it.”
The motion will be debated at Wigan’s full council meeting on September 23.