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RAILTRACK'S BALLAST OPERATION IN THE OXFORD
GREEN BELT:
March 2001
Railtrack announces a huge extension to the site
When Railtrack first revealed its plan to set up a ballast dump in south
Oxford in 1998, it said it had no plans to extend the site. Local residents
warned that this assurance could not be trusted. At that time ballast wagons
were kept at Didcot, brought up to Oxford to be filled, then taken back
to Didcot for onward delivery. The obvious danger was that the Didcot operation
would be brought up to Oxford.
Sure enough, in 2000 Railtrack announced that as a result of unforeseen
(!) growth in traffic there was no longer space on the main line for these
journeys to and from Didcot. The site at Oxford would therefore be more
than doubled in size, to provide sidings on which empty and loaded waggons
could be 'parked'.
False propaganda - yet again
The propaganda 'consultation' document put out by Railtrack's propaganda
agents, Wardell Armstrong, did not reveal that engines would continue to
be based at Didcot, so there would actually be more journeys on the main
line than before. Numerous colour photographs, all taken in summer, tried
to show that the new sidings would be almost invisible from houses, the
nearest of which is less than 100m away. Noise would be 'insignificant'.
Only in one single phrase did the document hint that the site would in fact
be used for 're-marshalling' waggons. Letters sent to local residents sought
to give the impression that the sidings would just be a quiet park for stationary
trains.
What was really being planned
Local residents' representatives on the Liaison Group saw that Wardell Armstrong
was grossly underestimating the impact of the proposed extension. Houses
all down Wytham Street and nearby roads would be affected. Most of the movements
onto and off the site would inevitably take place at night, when there was
space on the main line. Tall lighting standards were to be installed so
that the whole place could be floodlit. The noise would be very considerable,
and there would be a severe increase in pollution from fumes. There would
be many more movements than before, because engines would have to come up
and down from Didcot and work their way through a series of points to get
through the sidings.
The 'consultation' period
Under pressure from the Group, Railtrack reluctantly agreed to delay the
so-called 'consultation period' for a month. The company's 'permitted development
rights' allow it to do what it likes. The plan went to the City Council
(not the County this time), who deplored it but felt there was no point
in taking the extreme but probably futile step of issuing an 'Article 4'.
A request that Railtrack would at least ban night movements at weekends
was flatly rejected. Railtrack agreed to a few cosmetic details that would
probably have been done anyway, such as planting shrubs and fitting better
cowls on the floodlights, but it made no significant concessions. Wardell
Armstrong did a noise monitoring exercise and doctored the results to make
the likely nuisance seem minimal. As soon as the City planning committee
had discussed the scheme at the end of January 2001, work began on the new
site.
Liaison Group members write to Andrew Smith, the local MP
Letters from local residents to Mr Smith, who is a member of the Cabinet,
were forwarded by him to the Minister concerned, Nick Raynsford, and to
the head of Railtrack, Steven Marshall. The replies were so unsatisfactory
that the eight members of the Liaison Group wrote a joint letter to Mr Smith,
asking him to raise points with Mr Raynsford and Mr Marshall. The following
is an extract from the Group's letter.
'Points to Mr Raynsford:
1. Would Mr Raynsford kindly assure us that he fully understands why Railtrack's
developments on the Oxford sidings have been, and are, so strongly opposed
by Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council, many amenity groups
and thousands of local residents?
2. Two years ago the County took the brave step of seeking an 'Article 4
direction'. Railtrack was able to render the Council and Mr Raynsford himself
powerless, simply by starting work immediately. Bearing in mind New Labour's
election promise to strengthen local government, would the Minister not
agree with us that the Article 4 provision is both undemocratic and so heavily
loaded in favour of the developer as to be useless?
3. When Railtrack established the ballast heap in 1998 they said there were
no plans to expand the site. Two years later they announced a huge expansion.
If Mr Raynsford had known of these plans in 1998, would his response to
the County have been any different?
4. Is Mr Raynsford aware that there has never been an environmental assessment
not sponsored by Railtrack, nor any genuine consultation, and that the so-called
'consultation' documents provided by Railtrack's agents, Wardell Armstrong,
have been misleading and in places downright untrue? Is he satisfied with
a system that allows a developer to get away with providing false evidence?
5. Will Mr Raynsford accept our assurance that many of our warnings about
the site have been proved correct? Wardell Armstrong said 'noise is not
an issue at this site'. We said it would be a major issue with no adequate
solution, and we were right. The noise is often still appalling, and it
will certainly get worse. As we predicted, hours of working have been much
longer than Railtrack originally suggested; and Railtrack is indeed going
to expand the site and use it for other purposes than just ballast handling.
Clouds of diesel fumes are regularly pumped over the area. The site, now
often floodlit at night, is an eyesore in the Green Belt and visible from
houses.
We are dismayed that Mr Raynsford still 'cannot say' when he will review
Railtrack's permitted development rights. We join with our City and County
Councils in calling on him to withdraw these rights from Railtrack as a
matter of urgency before more damage is done at Oxford and elsewhere.
Points to Mr Marshall of Railtrack:
1. Mr Marshall has been seriously misinformed about realities here on the
ground. As has emerged very clearly at Liaison Group meetings, there is
a gulf between what Railtrack says is happening on the site and what we
know is happening. Railtrack seems to have deplorably little knowledge of,
or control over, the activities of its contractors.
2. The new sidings will often be busy, especially at anti-social hours.
Shunting has already increased; more and more people are complaining of
being woken up. Mr Marshall says movements will be 'limited', but Railtrack
has in fact refused the City's request for limitations.
3. The 'specially arranged noise monitoring' to which Mr Marshall refers
has been presented - presumably deliberately - in a highly misleading way:
Wardell Armstrong in fact recorded high noise levels at night, but then
reduced them by comparing them with daytime ambient noise. The Environmental
Health Officer agrees that this was not a correct method of calculation.
4. The environmental impact has not been 'properly assessed'. Wardell Armstrong
has made the ludicrous claim that noise from the new sidings, less than
100m from the nearest house, will be 'insignificant'. Trains carrying hundreds
of tons of granite ballast cannot be shunted about quietly. The 'consultation'
document makes no mention of fumes and almost none of noise (except the
short-term noise of initial construction), nor does it reveal that operations
so far done at Didcot are to be moved to Hinksey (although the engines will
continue to be based at Didcot, thereby involving yet more movements). The
document tries to pretend that what is planned is a quiet 'park' for stationary
trains, but in reality the site will be a marshalling yard, a very important
centre for an enormous railway area.
5. While there will be some simplifications to the existing layout, each
locomotive will have to come up from Didcot, then stop, idle, start and
reverse repeatedly as it works its way through the many sets of points.
All these movements, as we now know all too well, are extremely noisy and
slow.
6. Mr Marshall is not correct to say that the sidings 'have been used for
engineering trains for many years'. The sidings were built for emergency
use in the war, and they fell out of use in the seventies. Some of us have
lived here for nearly thirty years, and none of us ever saw an engineering
train on the sidings until 1998, except for an occasional car transporter.
7. A Railtrack official has been heard to say the City Council has 'given
the go-ahead' for the extension. Several of us attended recent meetings
of the City planning committee, at which councillors repeatedly said that
the Council is and always has been opposed to the developments at Hinksey.
They very much regretted that the law prevented them from taking effective
action, but they made some modest, mostly cosmetic demands, the most significant
of which - a ban on weekend night movements - Railtrack has rejected.
We call upon Mr Marshall to acknowledge the inaccuracies in his letter;
to understand what has really happened here; to do everything in his power
to mitigate the effects of the disaster his company has inflicted on South
Oxford; and to plan now to move the Hinksey operations to a less anti-social
site as soon as possible.
Thank you very much for your help. We would be very interested to
know what you yourself think about Railtrack's developments at Hinksey and
the way in which the company has represented them.'
The future
Watch this website for further reports. We are deeply suspicious of Railtrack's
long-term aims. Already the sidings are being used for waggons loaded with
material other than ballast. Already Railtrack is claiming established use
for the ballast dump. It is now known that a site at Appleford would have
been available two years ago, but Railtrack have absolutely refused to consider
any alternative to Oxford. No one can control the company's use of its own
land as long as the law on permitted development rights remain in force.
You can help by writing to your MP and to Nick Raynsford, urging the Government
to reform a law that is obviously unjust and undemocratic.
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