There was a collision this afternoon between Cambridge Cottage and Little Thatch, between a Volvo and one of the Nelsons Lorries. The Volvo came off worst, as was to be expected. It is not yet known who’s at fault but all villagers will know that this is a pinch point that sees a lot of ‘near misses’. The accident occurred between 17.30 and 17.50 on Monday 23rd June.
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Monxton Matters 
Why can these trucks not be STOPPED from coming through Monxton in the first place. They are causing damaged to the road, verges, hedges, parked cars and now moving ones as well. In addition they are dropping lumps of debris on the road when they turn up Georgia Lane – which is another accident waiting to happen There is a planning application in to extend the hours they can run – starting at 06:00am instead of 08:00 and also to run on Public Holidays. When have we had ENOUGH and when will the Hampshire Highways or TVBC step in – or is it not in their interest to do so? I wonder????
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We have been in touch with TVBC and the Police about these lorries. Sadly, they have every right to use the roads and the work they are carrying out at Georgia or Fox Farm is allowed under Permitted Development rights. We need as many people as possible to contact TVBC or other avenues to complain as it’s falling on deaf ears.
This is the Police response so far:
“If people are witnessing driving which they feel is driving without due care and attention they must report it, otherwise without this no-one knows about it. Just to manage expectations, independent witnesses are usually required or some form of objective evidence so that a successful prosecution will be the end result and pass prosecutions thresholds from the CPS.
As to Tachos that is the remit of the Commercial Vehicle unit & Traffic and controlled by the Traffic commissioner (who i think is located in Bristol?) and like most things we need reasonable grounds to suspect that they are breaching daily hours and such like and cannot go out on a wing a prayer but if a lorry is involved in an accident we can then check them etc
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_guidance_on_prosecuting_cases_of_bad_driving/
Above is the link for the CPS guidelines for a large amount of driving offences, the only thing it doesn`t really highlight is the burden of proof i.e independent witnesses etc.”
So we need evidence that the Nelson lorries are breaking the speed limits, driving without due care and attention or any other misdemeanor. We have repeatedly ask that they at least follow a one-way system to mitigate the damage to our village. Currently we have no powers to stop them, unless we (all/any villagers) can prove they have done wrong. Please feel free to complain to the Police and call 101 (or 999 if an emergency) to log a complaint.
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Karl, that is useful info thank you. How do we appeal the planning application. I believe we need to do this individually but also collectively as one body – ie the Parish Council. The more people that are aware that they must appeal the better – much like the megga shed appeals which were successful as villagers were kept aware of what they needed to do. I suggest the Parish Council email all villagers with the appeal link and canvas those without email. I certainly am happy to assist.
In addition I have now seen 2 huge lorries carrying long lengths of tree trunks – I suspect the first of many thousands that will come through the village. The bridge down by little cottage may not cope with all of this. This could certainly be raised at the next PC meeting.
Cathy Barbone
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Karl thank you for your comments. I believe we must ask the PC to email everyone to canvass them to appeal to the change in hrs. This is just unacceptable. I have counted at least 10 Nelson lorries in an hour and in addition there have been 2 large log carrying lorries this week..the start of the many to be expected. I am dubious about the development rights going on there and judging by the number of lorries believe that the forest is being used as ground dump. A colleague of mine will fly over to see what is going on. It’s all very well protesting as an individual but we need the PC behind this application as well.
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Application to vary the hours of HGV`s from Weyhill Depot to start at 6am and operate on Saturdays and Public Holidays——-UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!
Please read this if you have actually found out about this, and have objected on the TVBC site, or if you are simply sick of the village being used as an HGV `ratrun`.
1. The Planning Authority dealing with this is HCC, not TVBC, who are acting as agents.
I am informed by both authorities that objections placed on the TVBC site should be forwarded to HCC,
but best to repeat using the links below
2.The case officer is Kristina Kng, and she has asked for all objections to be sent to
planning@hants.gov.uk and cc`d to her at kristina.king@hants.gov.uk.
3. The search webpage for the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Planning Applications is:
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/mineralsandwaste/applications-search.htm?goback=Back+to+Search+Applications
If you type TV249 into the site reference box in the link above then you will find the site history for the Weyhill Road site.
4.She has agreed to move the final date for objections to 1st August
6.If you include name and address with the objection Kristina will post you notification of the public planning meeting when fixed, to decide the application,(probably 17th September).
7. Please make sure you read the application and that your objections relate directly to it, although it obviously has a direct bearing on our problem.
8. Cllr Pat West has insisted on a site meeting which will take place in September
9Details of the application can also be found on the TVBC planning site ref 14/01527/CMAN
WE NEED TO STOP THIS
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Typo–Should of course read Kristina King
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Not sure if may help anyone, but I have just sent the wording below as an objection (not the most eloquent, but at least an objection) – please feel free to use this if this helps anyone submit a personal objection!
Martyn Phillips
“I refer to the above application to extend the hours of operation from 8am to 6am and not to include Bank Holidays.
I live in the village of Monxton (a historic village, in a Conservation Zone), where houses front directly onto the High Street (which is used by the HGVs operated by Nelson Ltd), with no pavements or street lighting and a High Street that is only one car’s width (after residents have parked their cars outside their houses).
Having these noisy HGVs operating from 6am 6 days a week and also over Bank Holidays is simply intolerable.
They will be driving only a matter of yards from the front of our property and they are not silent electric vehicles, but noisy diesels which upon hitting bumps in the road make further noise (and the vibrations from the laden vehicles potentially damaging the historic properties in the village.
In summer, when we have our windows open to survive the heat, we will have an unwelcome alarm call every morning at 6am, 6 days a week.
The fabric of our village is one of an ancient, historic and beautiful part of our heritage. It is gradually being eroded by an ever increasing amount of industrial traffic on our small village High Street (which has children, horses, pensioners regularly walking down it – again, please note, not on a pavement, but down the actual unlit road, which is very narrow).
I am unable to chop a branch off trees in my garden without consulting the council given the importance of the village status as a conservation zone as well as an area of natural beauty, but it seems fine to send an endless stream of HGVs through our village which seems a much more significant destruction of the protected status of our historic village.
My wife and I strongly object to Nelson extending the hours under which we will see their large and noisy lorries destroying the peace and fabric of our village as well continuing to present a material risk to residents and their cars along the narrow and poorly protected High Street.”
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With the greatest of respect Martyn, I would urge people not use your objection as a template, although I agree with everything you say.
The application is to vary the operating hours at Homestead farm, and the consequential impact on the village would be appalling but must be linked to valid planning objections to the application.
For example:
4.0 Existing condition 3 states that vehicles shall only leave the site between 08.00 and 18.00 Mon-Sat. We all know , and can give witness to the fact that this condition has been broken on a regular basis with fully loaded HGV`s coming through the village as early as 7.40 most days of the week
These times were imposed in accordance with DC8 of the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Core Strategy. Has this changed?
The supporting document also states under 6 that vehicles are required to leave the site earlier as customers often require skips early in the morning. How does this fit with the aforementioned HGV`s loaded with soil and landfill leaving the site before 08.00?
6.1)Highlights the fact that vehicles will be moving slowly along the access driveway before joining the main A342, and seems to imply that they will stay on the main road network. The reality, as we know, is that they are only a few minutes away from unclassified narrow roads in residential areas , deemed “unsuitable for HGV`s by HCC themselves.
Furthermore,they talk about other businesses operating for longer hours nearby, yet fail to mention that Nelsons use routes specifically forbidden by planning conditions applying to these businesses
7. The conclusion that they can operate without any adverse effect on the environment and the local community is clearly ludicrous, and your example of lorries destroying the peace, quite literally thundering past , a few feet away from open bedroom windows.
I believe this is a weak application, but we must attack the supporting statement in specific terms if we are to stop it.
Incidentally the Fox Farm Forestry Track/Landfill operation is a separate planning issue under permitted development and we have at least managed to get an investigation by TVBC planning into the fact that simple arithmetic shows that Nelsons have already moved around twice the volume of soil/aggregate they described in their application.
Hope this helps, as it was not meant as any form of criticism, and thanks for taking the trouble to make an objection. We need many others to do the same
Peter
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Martin – many thanks for the template, we have submitted an objection.
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As a resident of Monxton. I have to say that all Nelson lorries are always travelling at a very slow speed limit which is without doubt taking into account the conditions of Monxton, the drivers are polite, courteous and thoughtful to other road users and horses etc. They have every right to use this road network so I am not sure what the point of complaint is. I witnessed the above accident and it was in fact the driver of the Volvos fault. They were travelling too fast and clipped the grass verge and crashed into the lorry which was in fact stationary at the time, the police report will prove this fact. With regards to the afore mentioned planning application surely it is better to allow the works to be completed rather than slowing them down, as an ex planner I am knowledgable to know that the planning application will NOT be overturned and all your actions will do, is provoke more trouble and potentially lots more lorry movements. I strongly disagree with your tactics on this one, after all Nelsons do employ lots of local people. I have several friends who all live in Amport and Monxton and we will be starting a petition against the parish council for their actions and attitude against this company, this is without doubt prejudice and could quite easily land you in hot water legally !!!
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Difficult to know where to start in response to your post Joan, but here goes:
1.”All Nelson lorries are always travelling at a very slow speed limit which is without doubt taking into account the conditions of Monxton”
How on earth can you back up that statement? Have you objective statistical evidence, or or you just expressing a point of view?
I would add that in my own experience, most of the drivers have indeed been polite and reasonable, and most of them travel within the maximum speed limit .They have ,on more than one occasion, apologised for ploughing their wing mirrors through my hedge. I do not have an issue with the drivers.
2. If you do not understand what the the complaint is then I see little point in trying to explain it here.
Hampshire County Council have judged the road to be “Unsuitable for HGV`s, and have signed it as such. TVBC imposed a planning condition on the Goodmans Site which barred HGV movements through the village and imposed a £500 fine for infringements. Are they all wrong?
3. If you are `knowledgeable` as an ex planner, then you should be aware that the operation at Fox Farm is not a planning application as such, but is allowed as permitted development via the `prior notification` process. As such it cannot be `overturned` If you have read the original notification, then you will also be aware that the amount of material already moved appears to be way in excess of what is needed for the specification quoted in that application.
4.How will objection lead to more lorry movements? I am not quite sure what you are suggesting here.
5.We are not `prejudiced` against Nelsons. Anyone who has attended Parish Council Meetings, or read Monxton Matters over the past several years will know villagers have consistently objected to all large HGV movements through the village, for really very obvious reasons. The current efforts to relocate the destination of the oversized steel lorries , and the huge fight we put up against the Megashed development are just two examples.
6.Finally, exactly are you inferring by”easily land you in hot water legally”?
Precisely which laws are being broken?
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I emailed Joan Baxter but I have not had a reply. I have tried to email Joseph Flynn, who commented on the Nelson’s post but the email came back as ‘does not exist’.Both Joseph Flynn and Joan Baxter are unknown to anyone in the village and they do not appear on the electoral role. Therefore we can only assume that these people are not real and that the writers of the comments are connected in some way with Nelsons, unless proved otherwise.
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Hi Joan, thank you for your comments which were very useful. Could I ask which part of Monxton do you live in. Do you live on the main road going through Monxton?
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