Row over lorry noise
CHURCH and community leaders and residents have objected to proposals for night-time deliveries at a Felixstowe superstore.Morrisons want permission for lorries to visit its store in Grange Farm Avenue 24 hours a day.
CHURCH and community leaders and residents have objected to proposals for night-time deliveries at a Felixstowe superstore.
Morrisons want permission for lorries to visit its store in Grange Farm Avenue 24 hours a day.
But town councillors, leaders of Cavendish Community Church, and nearby residents have all complained - with people worried that fully-laden trucks in low-gear going up the hill to the supermarket complex will generate intolerable noise.
Many port shiftworkers live in the area and will not want to be disturbed at night.
However, Suffolk Coastal councillors are being recommended to give the go-ahead to the deliveries for a trial period - until the end of the year - providing Morrisons agree to a management plan to ensure all vehicles do not arrive at night, and to a register of lorry arrivals and departures being kept.
Current permission for the complex, which includes a public house, doctors' surgery and petrol filling station, only allows loading or unloading of vehicles from 6.30am to 10.30pm Mondays to Fridays, and 7am to 8pm Saturdays.
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Felixstowe Town Council is “strongly recommending refusal” because it fears HGV movements during unsocial hours will cause “serious noise intrusion” for people living in Capel Drive, Hintlesham Drive and Blyford Way, Shotley Close, Parkeston Road and Haven Close.
Seven letters of objection have been received from residents, along with protests from conservation group The Felixstowe Society, and Cavendish Community Church, which said it already endures considerable inconvenience and disturbance by lorry movements and activities in the goods yard opposite.
A letter from Morrison's noise consultants said there would be five lorry deliveries a night but felt use from other vehicles using Grange Farm Avenue at this time would be greater and noisier, especially as many travel at high speed.
It concluded that the trucks “will therefore not disturb these residents, even when sleeping during the quietest part of the night”.
A six-week trial at the end of last year generated no complaints at all.
A report to the development control south area sub committee on March 1 said a year's trial would enable effective monitoring to see if the permission should be made permanent.
Do you live near Morrisons - what do you think? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk
