Maidenhead & Windsor

Residents are fighting to stop scores of gravel lorries rumbling down their Maidenhead road. They are backing proposals for the gravel to be transported along the River Thames by barge. Digging for gravel on a site in Summerleaze Road, Maidenhead, is due to start in July next year.

Residents are concerned about the 60 lorries a day travelling in and out through residential areas. Maidenhead Gravel extraction company Summerleaze Ltd also supports the proposals to move the gravel by river. But in order to finance this, the company needs to allow housing development on its Summerleaze Road, Maidenhead site - which is Green Belt.

Matthew Williams, chairman of Summerleaze Area Residents Association, said they wanted to see the lorries off the streets and taken away from the Summerleaze Road area. He said: "The lorries will be using an existing lorry route, but we will have never seen or heard anything like this before. There will be 120 lorry movements each day, starting at 7 am including Saturday mornings, every day for 20 years or more, winding their way through Maidenhead back streets.

"Do we really want this? No, is the resounding answer I have have had from residents in the Summerleaze area."

Mr Williams said Maidenhead residents were in favour of allowing Summerleaze to develop its Green Belt site so that it could cover the costs of transporting gravel by river.

Mr Matthew said: "For councillors to say that building on Green Belt land acts as a precedent that will open the floodgates to developers is a blanket ban cop-out. While I agree that this land should be protected these are exceptional circumstances. Each and every case has to be looked at, and the pros and cons weighed up. " He added: "Far from being the the butterfly and buttercup Green Belt land, the plot of land we are talking is a grubby little corner currently used by the Summerleaze Ltd as a processing station.

"The public that I have spoken to, those with a vested interest in the area, are willing to trade a small piece of Green Belt and pay the price."

Mr Michael Lowe, a director on the board of Summerleaze, Maidenhead said they supported the proposals to transport the gravel by barge along the Thames. "I don't disagree with any of it," he said. But he said they needed to be able to finance this through housing development on their land at the Summerleaze Road depot.

"The major hurdle is that the Summerleaze site is still Green Belt," said Mr Lowe. The company has planning permission for mineral extraction until 2042, but not to build there. Mr Lowe confirmed that there would be 60 lorries using Summerleaze Road once gravel extraction started.

ic Berkshire ~ Maidenhead ~ Nov 25 2005