Nuneaton’s MP Marcus Jones last night (12 August) attended a special meeting of Over Whitacre Parish Council where over 200 concerned residents packed Nether Whitacre Church Hall, to express their concerns over a planning application on the former Daw Mill Colliery site.

At the meeting, concerns were expressed by residents about the application submitted by Harworth Estates, ranging from the unpredictability over how many jobs may or may not be created on the site, to concerns over the potential for massive amounts of heavy goods traffic using the existing country roads which serve the site.

As MP for Nuneaton, Arley and Over Whitacre, Marcus was on hand to listen to the concerns of local people and give his views on the proposal.

Marcus is firmly of the view that he wants to see jobs created in our area, but not at any cost to local people and there has to be a balance struck to make sure that local people are not adversely affected.

Despite being a former coalmine, the Daw Mill site is designated as greenbelt and Marcus has urged local people to join him in lobbying North Warwickshire Borough Councillors to reject the very flexible planning application that has been submitted to them.

Commenting, Marcus said: “At the moment, the Borough Council have an excellent opportunity to be able to support local residents. My fear is that if the Borough Council does grant planning permission in its current form, the flexible nature of the application means that there is no guarantee over what the site could be used for, or how many jobs could be created or what the impact will be on local infrastructure.

“There could even be a worst-of-all-worlds scenario where very few jobs are created, but huge numbers of heavy goods vehicles would access the site from country roads which currently struggle to cope with the amount of heavy goods traffic using them. There are also several very dangerous junctions, including the one at Furnace End which could be made worse if planners made the wrong decision.

“Planning decisions made about this site need to be carefully considered to make sure that the site is used appropriately to create new jobs, but which takes into account the fact that the site is not located next to a motorway, as is the case on a number of local ex-coalmining sites where distribution hubs have been created.”