Following the recent emergency legislation from the Government "The Town and Country Planning (Border Facilities and Infrastructure) (EU Exit) (England) Special Development Order 2020" (click here to see legislation) we were surprised to see that CWaC is one of 28 local authorities selected for potential lorry parks.

We had expected these to be located close to our ports as the Government had promised that there would be minimum impact on trade but this confirms our worst fears that the country faces utter chaos as thousands of lorries are held across the country waiting for clearance. We already have significant issues with lorries using overstretched roads, particularly the M56, A41, A51 and A49 and adding a large scale lorry park will only make this worse, not to mention the environmental impact.

Paul Roberts, Leader of Liberal Democrats on CWaC commented

With the very likely possibility of a no-deal Brexit, Emergency order such as these are going to have a huge impact on the residents of CWaC. The public's focus has rightly been on the Covid 19 epidemic but the Tory Government under Boris Johnson has refused our repeated requests to delay Brexit in order to give our businesses, border force and the civil service time to prepare and we are now seeing the potential consequences of this decision. We urge the Government to explain exactly where these parks are needed, how many vehicles are expected and why, given their promise of a frictionless trade and no disruption to our economy, that suddenly we are faced with these lorry parks. 

This is very worrying for our local industries including Airbus and Vauxhall, with unemployment set to rise due to Covid we can ill afford the self inflicted destruction of important local businesses because of the hardline view of a minority of Tory MPs that we should leave the EU with no deal. We urge the Government to explain the true impact of a no deal scenario, with just over 3 months to go they are risking the livelihoods of CWaC residents and in the current pandemic situation this is not acceptable.

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