Morrison faces planning battle
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by Grant Prior • Sixty additional drivers will be taken on by William Morrison Supermarkets if the company wins a planning battle to build a 56,00m2 warehouse and distribution centre in Cheshire.
About 600 extra daily deliveries will be created when the warehouse opens: probably in October next year. Morrison's own fleet of liveried trucks will handle the work. More than 600 jobs would be created in the new warehouse at Lach Dennis which will serve 60 supermarkets in the North and Midlands.
The planning committee of local authority Vale Royal Borough Council has already approved the scheme but local residents are opposing it; they fear hundreds of trucks will pass the area every day and their furious protests have prompted the Department of the Environment to move in. Plans for the site are with DoE officials now—they will decide whether to hold a public inquiry Morrisons' development director Chris Evenson says: "We are hopeful the public inquiry will not be called in and the matter can be dealt with at a local level. Our traffic consultants have agreed truck movement figures with the local council." He denies the new warehouse will cause redundancies elsewhere.
If the Lach Dennis site goes ahead, the company's main Wakefield depot will switch its attentions to six superstores opening in the East Pennines.