Quite simply, nobody ever listens. Now that the site is in operation, albeit not yet at its full design capacity, the silence from Havant Borough Council and Hampshire County Council continues.
Havant Borough Council’s attitude to public engagement on the planning and development of this site has been at best complacent, at worst, downright negligent. Serious questions have been asked and few, if any, satisfactory responses have been given. Hampshire County Council Highways have remained distant, detached and disinterested from the outset.
By pandering to Amazon’s national policy of ‘planning anonymity’, Havant Borough Council forced through the planning approval without fully informing either the borough’s residents or, more worryingly, statutory planning consultees such Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. National Highways, formerly Highways England, were not consulted either, despite the fact that documents presented by the applicant showed that 95% of the traffic was expected to route to the strategic road network via the residential streets of the town.
Before reading what some of the residents are saying, it would be appropriate to set some context to their complaints.
Over the long history of the New Lane employment estate, it has never previously hosted an occupier generating traffic around-the-clock, non-stop, day-in, day-out for 365 days a year. Where evening and night shift working might once have occurred, it was only on a temporary basis to meet production peaks at the likes of Kenwood, Colt and Goodmans, mostly unobtrusive to those around.
Sundays and bank holidays were always quiet.
What follows are extracts from just some of the individual complaints raised via the HCS website so far:
“Woken up regularly 2am, house vibrates, windows shake, Crossland Drive road was not built to take such high volume traffic nor are the homes, windows are shut due to noise and dust and fumes. The small vans speed down road, terrible choice of site for this business…” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“… I live by the zebra crossing so it’s not unusual to see Amazon vans and HGVs queued outside waiting for the lights to change… In the early hours of the morning when I’m in bed the noise and vibrations as they go past are much more noticeable. I worry about the vibrations causing cracks in the walls of my property. The state of my road and New Lane is atrocious, the potholes are getting ever bigger, particularly at the Crossland Drive/New Lane junction.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Vibration from speeding HGVs causes our house to shake and we have started getting surface cracks on our internal walls as a result… I think there needs to be some sort of speed restrictions to slow traffic. Or there needs to a different route they can take that doesn’t run through residential areas and takes them straight on the main roads.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Speeding down the road that causes the vibrations to shake the house. I’m sure it isn’t just Amazon but also the other lorries. Speed bumps should be put into the road.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“If I would have known that it was going to cause so much disturbing and disruption to my life I would have moved…. the property is now having problems with movement in the brick work.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“House shaking. Lorries keeping us awake at night. Vans parking outside our house and on our ‘keep clear’ sign.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Getting woken up at 3am every day by Amazon lorries on Crossland Drive (also partially due to the appalling state of the road surface). It’s not just the noise, its the fact that my house shakes and the walls are getting cracks in them…. From about 10:30 am onwards the road is full of black Amazon Prime and white contractor vans. My driveway gets parked over/in regularly. I’m glad I only rent this house and will be leaving the area as soon as possible.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Lorries and vans thunder through Crosslands Drive 24 hours a day which makes my house and everything in shake. The vans take up all the parking spaces and at night the lorries park on the pavement opposite my house. It’s absolutely relentless” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Long Amazon branded multi-axle articulated HGVs now using the New Lane – Eastern Road – Elmleigh Road rat-run daily at all hours, especially during the overnight period. They seem to enjoy taking the dog-leg turn challenge at the back of the station but in doing so are completely blind to users of the new pedestrian/cycle crossing.” [A resident of New Lane (south)]
“Amazon HGV passed along Elmleigh Road going west along this road from Leigh Road! It must have come down Eastern Road from New Lane!” [A resident of Elmleigh Road]
“Noise from traffic since Amazon have had site. My kids haven’t slept properly since Amazon site has opened. Lots of noise from the warehouse” [A resident of Flexford Gardens]
“Since the warehouse has opened we have vans coming all times of day parking up on pavements blocking junctions and parking opposite junctions making it dangerous for other road users. We also have heavy traffic all through the night which we can hear and is now keeping our young child awake throughout the night.” [A resident of Flexford Gardens]
“I live opposite the entrance to Amazon. I cannot sit in my garden with all the traffic entering the site. My sons bedroom is opposite the site and as he works shifts he cannot ever get sleep in the early morning due to the noise of vans and lights flashing.” [A resident of New Lane (north)]
“Vans sorting parcels out blocking drive. drivers rude when asked to move. trying to cross the road Crossland drive when the white vans come out. delivery lorry’s early hours of morning they park across my garage even with a disabled notice do not park dropping cigarette butts out of window” [A resident of New Lane (north)]
“I’m tired of my children being woken up by lorries beeping their horns through out the night for a ridiculous amount of time as well as the constant vans being parked just outside my house. It makes me and my children really uneasy to see people in vans waiting outside and near our home” [A resident of New Lane (north)]
“Lorrys beeping all hours of the night trying to get into the depot, white vans parking blocking our cars and drives, staff chatting and shouting late at night in the car park , weekends traffic all backup up the road. Lorrys reversing up the road at night because they have made a wrong turn” [A resident of New Lane (north)]
“White vans constantly speeding down crossland drive and new lane day and night , increasing amounts of huge articulated lorrys coming back and forth along crossland drive at all hours of the night causing our windows to shake and or wake us up if we have window open whilst sleeping ,this will be a big problem during coming summer months.” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“I walk my dog around the area and past Amazon a few times a day , the speeding of the vans and staff speeding as they come to/from work at Amazon there is also shocking , I’ve seen it all , and I have been wondering what can be done or what sort of care Amazon have -NONE !!! I’ve been in there myself a couple of times to raise complaint and basicly hit a brick wall , I’ve called Amazon multiple times trying to find an avenue of complaint- again like a brick wall” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
“Since the amazon warehouse was put up we have seen an increase in the volume of traffic and noise pollution. There is a continous stream of traffic and we also have to put up with the noise from amazon drivers who have not got the patience with other drivers as there in a hurry to make deliveries and are beeping there horns to make the traffic go faster. I have also witnessed amazons vans jumping the red lights. It will only be a matter of time when an accident will happen. Also the big blue amazon lorries i have seen pull over in crossland drive and hold up other traffic coming down the road.” [A resident of New Lane (north)]
“My house is opposite to amazon and i have seen lorries attempt to go in the entrance opposite me and then because they have gone in the wrong entrance they then have to reverse. Which worries me in case they reverse into my garden wall… I can hear my windows and doors rattling and have seen cracks appearing in my back rooms…” [A resident of Flexford Gardens]
“I watched my neighbour getting verbally abused and physically threatened by one of the van drivers. So I opened my front door and shouted at him to clear off. He did go eventually after slamming his van doors and shouting abuse out of his windows…” [A resident of Flexford Gardens]
“A big issue along ‘oak park drive’ and ‘river way’ … is there’s always Amazon flex drivers sat here, sometimes 4 or 5 vans, waiting for flex jobs to come in , basically hiding near the depot… My partner and other females I know do not like to walk around there now due the Eastern European drivers gathering there sat in transit vans, they find it scary and intimidating to walk past, particularly in dark of winter, I have tried to raise this issue with the council and Amazon to no avail” [A resident of Crossland Drive]
This is just a selection from the complaints received in the first two weeks since the complaint/contact form was put up on the website.
The wider impact of this traffic on the routes between DPO1 and the three main roundabouts at Langstone, the Rusty Cutter and Asda will become clearer as this form becomes better known. Also bound to be hit will be the Warblington interchange, with rat-running through Bartons Road to Southleigh Road and Horndean Road into Emsworth.
At the moment, the major impact is off-peak, predominantly unbranded DSP vans between 10:00am and 2:00pm and Flex drivers using ‘invisible’ private cars between noon and late evening. With use of DPO1 ramping up to outsourced deliveries for the likes of other major businesses such as B&Q, eBay and major fashion brands, when they finally open up and use the ‘van storage units’, being built across the country, who knows what the traffic volumes will be?
Certainly not the two local authorities, who steadfastly refuse to admit that there’s a problem. National Highways remain blissfully unaware too since they still don’t officially know that DPO1 exists.
Havant Civic Society 