oday, May 21, the Vale of White Horse Planning Committee will have the chance to prevent a coach and horses, or, rather, hundreds of HGVs being driven through plans for the development of Science Vale.

The problem is that Diageo Pension Fund, which owns a large commercial site close to the Milton Park Enterprise Zone, has applied for approval to build a “giant” warehouse there.

This warehouse will, apparently, generate at least 1,400 additional HGV movements daily and, with a proposed 3,000 employees, thousands of car journeys.

Given the site’s location, lorries and cars will have to use the currently overburdened roads carrying traffic to Milton Park. Many will, of course, use the A34.

No-one can rationally object to the development of the site, although, in justice, the existing start-up and small companies there should be given protection. But what is incomprehensible to many, including the local MP, Milton Park, local businesses, councils and residents, is that in the centre of the Vale’s planned international hi-tech hub, such a valuable location would be considered to house an enormous warehouse.

It is well known that hi-tech companies can be very choosy about where they locate. Key factors are the quality of the transport infrastructure and the availability of a highly skilled workforce. The Vale has the latter in spades (conversely, a warehouse operator would find it difficult to recruit many of the required 3,000 employees locally); but the infrastructure is problematic. Yes, the Vale is just near enough to Heathrow; yes, there is a railway station at Didcot; but the roads? Adding several thousand journeys daily, generated by a giant warehouse will put off any hi-tech company and choke off the growth that the Vale community so want to attract and benefit from.

PAULINE WILSON, Milton Road, Sutton Courtenay

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