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Heritage listing could save other truckstops
Page 12
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If the plan to have Alconbury listed as a heritage site is successful it might become a template to save other threatened trucKstops.
Chris Tindall reports.
THE MAN BEHIND the novel request to have Alconbury truckstop marked as a listed heritage site wants to create a process for protecting similar sites.
Professional Drivers Association (PDA) secretary John Bramwells says he was too late to send in an application to English Heritage to protect the truck park at Junction 1 of the M54 near Wolverhampton. However, if his attempt at persuading the government's statutory adviser on historic buildings is successful at Alconbury, he will use the idea as a template to protect other threatened truckstops. Bramwells says: "It's not frivolous and it's not a wind-up. It's about a vanishing way of life."
Bramwells acted after landowner Wrenbridge Land closed Alconbury at the end of August (Truckstop could reopen as listed heritage si te', CM 11 October). He says it could take up to six months for a decision to be made,but in the meantime any redevelopment plans for the site may be stalled.
In his letter to English Heritage, Bramwells says: "We have also noted your desire to ensure that buildings so listed by this process should not become fossilised. It is our belief that there is such a demand throughout the county as well as the country for this facility that that would not be the case. Its very location would ensure its continued use as a truckstop — admittedly as a protected building."
Bramwells tells CM:"Closure of Alconbury is bad progress. I think it's definitely worth preserving. The PDA doesn't have a lot of resources, but we have e-mail, some of us have faxes and we can stick a stamp to a letter." An English Heritage spokeswoman confirms that there is no precedent for listing a truck park. Wrenbridge would not comment as CM went to press.