Four-year attempt to find site 'thwarted', says haulier
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• A Penrith haulage firm's four-year hunt for a depot site was described last* week at a public inquiry in Penrith. Barnett and Graham Ltd appealed against refusal of planning permission for the use of a seven-acre disused limestone quarry at Stainton on the outskirts of the town near A66 Penrith to West Cumberland trunk road.
The firm's managing director, Mr Arthur D. Hewetson, said 20 lorries were operated from the Canerlen garage. The present premises could provide undercover accommodation for maintenance for only one vehicle at a time.
Mr Hewetson also produced the transcript of a Northern traffic area inquiry at Carlisle earlier this year resulting from faults found on two vehicles, in which reference was made to the general difficulty of Penrith area hauliers in finding suitable sites for premises.
The transcript recorded the comment of the LA, Mr J. A. T. Hanlon, that it seemed ridiculous to expect a Penrith firm to use maintenance premises 18 miles away at Carlisle made available by Cumberland County Council.
Mr Hewetson also detailed various fruit
less steps taken by the firm to secure premises. These included the purChase of a bus station in Penrith, with a promise to maintain the local bus service from it as well as use of the site for goods vehicle maintenance, which was frustrated by the action of the urban council in taking over the premises by compulsory purchase; and the offer of al acre at the council's trading estate, for £4000, turned down because of security risk, cost, and lack of expansion opportuni y.
For the county planning authority, Mr David Brooks, assistant county planning officer, said the quarry proposal would create an "undesirable environmental impact".
He added that the planning authority had always been aware of the considerable number of haulage concerns in and round Penrith and the need for a site to provide facilities. The question was being examined in the light of a Government report on lorry parking. The authority was not necessarily opposed to parking of lorries at Penrith.
The inquiry, hell by an Environment Department inspector, was closed and a decision will be anno inced.