Countryside campaigners say if a 280-acre business park is built in the middle of the Felixstowe peninsula it will be “a disaster for the environment”.

FELIXSTOWE: Countryside campaigners say if a 280-acre business park is built in the middle of the Felixstowe peninsula it will be “a disaster for the environment”.

Save Felixstowe Countryside has expressed anger and concern that Trinity College, Cambridge, has put forward to Suffolk Coastal council and regional planners the project for land on the edge of Trimley St Martin and Kirton.

The group, which is campaigning to protect greenfield land in the area from development, said it would turn the peninsula into “a dirty industrial area with even worse air pollution than currently exists” and another food producing area would be lost.

It believes it is a job-promising carrot to persuade planners to give permission for thousands of new homes.

“Any extension to the port's distribution area needs to be away from the peninsula and form a centralised facility which can be used by all Haven Gateway ports,” said a spokesman.

“Containing it within the Felixstowe peninsula will simply result in the A14 becoming a quagmire of lorries driving between the port and Innocence Farm.”

It is concerned about accidents which could block the A14 and prevent emergency vehicles getting through.

“Any expansion to Trinity Park is likely to double the number of lorry movements on a key stretch of the A14, giving an unacceptable risk to the residents of Felixstowe and the Trimleys as a result,” said the spokesman.

Trinity College says the development is needed for port-related business to keep the port as a world-class container terminal, and the site could be hidden by a 50-metre to 70-metre deep earthbank, planting and trees.

Will a business park on the site destroy the area? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk