'wily loses baffle
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Despite environmental 7esentations from a family ig close to BRS Northern's corn depot, the company won unrestricted authority .ontinue operating from the
RS applied to North3tern Licensing Authority • Hutchings to renew its th-Western area licence torising the operation of vehicles and 787 trailers n 23 operating centres. e Runcorn and Bolton ots attracted environmen tal objections; Bolton's future has still to be decided.
A Mr and Mrs M Gregory and their two sons maintained that they were frequently woken in the middle of the night by vehicles that appeared to be operating a shuttle service at Runcorn.
Horns were sounded, vehicles were parked on the side of the road with their engines running, trailers were shunted in the yard, brakes were tested and maintenance was carried out at night. The situation was completely intolerable with their children being woken every night.
Questioned by Stephen Kirkbright for BRS the family agreed that the depot had been there for the whole of the 26 years that they have lived there and that there has been considerable improvement over recent months with only about four vehicles being operated at nights. The drivers are much quieter.
Edward Ellison, Runcorn branch manager, said the only night operation concerned vehicles carrying bulk beers for Bass.
Normally. four vehicles leave the depot at 6pm, returning between midnight and 3am.
There could be 10 vehicles at extremely busy periods but that is rare. New vehicles, fitted with silencers on the brakes and a more sophisticated silencer system to reduce noise, are being used on the contract, and the drivers have been instructed not to refuel at night and to park on the far side of the yard.
The gates are now left open, so there is no need to park vehicles on the roadside with engines running while the gates are opened.
Kirkbright said the night operation is part of the contractual terms with Bass and the contract would be lost if they could not continue. That in turn would severely affect the depot's future.
The depot is within 90ni of the Runcorn Expressway and there is considerable background noise from that during the day. I3RS would do all it could to mitigate the noise and the level of night operation will not increase significantly.
Hutchings said there has been no material change at Runcorn since the licence was last renewed and he is satisfied that it would not be appropriate to impose restrictive conditions.