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Stray e-mail reveals
Page 12
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alternative to Stack
By Chris Tindall CONTROVERSIAL PLANS to build a vast lorry park for 900 vehicles outside Felixstowe have been revealed by a stray Suffolk County Council e-mail.
The land next to Trimley St Martin has been identified as a possible permanent alternative to Operation Stack, under which lorries are directed on to the old A45 at Levington when the port closes.
However, the plans were being kept secret for fear of sparking a storm of protest from village residents objecting to a permanent lorry park on their doorstep.
Operation Stack has always been seen as a temporary arrangement, but a group comprised of police, council, highways and haulage representatives has been quietly investigating and looking into alternative plans. The proposed site at Innocence Farm was exposed after a council engineer mistakenly e-mailed details to the wrong group of people.
Under the subject heading 'Operation Stack Action' it revealed that the county council is carrying out a desktop study of the land with police to consider how its resources would be used there.
It even revealed that the council would be meeting with a company that manufactures paving for lorry parks.
Chief Inspector Martin BarnesSmith of Suffolk Police confirms the land is "one of many different solutions" being investigated.
However, he adds: "I can honestly say it was an agenda item, but it doesn't necessarily say it's going to happen. We will not plan a resource at Innocence Farm until someone says it's beyond the embryonic stage and it's a reality.
"Maybe that e-mail, in isolation, gives a suggestion that Innocence Farm is where we are going [but] it was just one of the items on the agenda. It was discussed."
Suffolk County Council did not respond.