The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.
There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.
Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.
Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.
East Midlands Gateway Rail Freight Interchange View all advice for this project
Enquiry
I note that your website shows proposals for two Rail Freight Interchanges in The East Midlands which are just 15 miles apart.
Please could you clarify whether or not the need for two such developments within such close proximity has been properly evaluated, particularly as there is already an existing rail freight depot at Castle Donington (East Midlands Distribution Centre) which has had unused capacity for some time.
The planning application for the East Midlands Gateway development was submitted 29th August, whilst that for the East Midlands Intermodal Park is expected Q1 2015. I note that a decision on the first application must be made within 28 days, however may I respectfully suggest that both applications should be considered together.
Advice given
The application by Roxhill (Kegworth) Ltd for the East Midlands Gateway Rail Freight Interchange was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate on 29 August 2014. A decision must be made by 26 September 2014 about whether or not the application is of a satisfactory standard for the Inspectorate to examine. There will be no decision about whether or not development consent should be granted until the application has been examined by an appointed Examining Authority, and a report and recommendations has been submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport. For more information on the process, please refer to our Advice note 8.1: How the process works.
The need for rail freight interchanges is set out in the Department for Transport?s Rail Freight Policy Guidance, which can be found here: attachment 1. There is also a draft National Policy Statement for the National Road and Rail Networks in the public domain which, if/when designated, will have primacy in the decision-making process for relevant nationally significant infrastructure projects. It is available here: attachment 2
There are a multitude of factors which would prevent the Planning Inspectorate from dictating when developers should submit applications to it. Regardless, each application for development consent accepted by the Inspectorate will be examined on its own merits. In consideration of an individual project, this does not however preclude the cumulative effects of development on a national, regional or local scale from being examined by an appointed Examining Authority.
If and when one, or both, of the applications referred to are accepted to be examined by the Planning Inspectorate, the respective developers will be required to publicise that decision and to provide notification of a period within which anybody can register to become an ?interested party? for the purposes of the examination. Interested party status affords people the right to make representations on the merits of a project to an appointed Examining Authority.
