Gridlock on the A12, A14 and local roads

Despite a lot of misleading press coverage, the developers are NOT proposing a new access road planned from the A14 to SnOasis. All of the traffic is proposed to go along the B1113. Even if we believe the figure of 825,000 visitors (which will be bad enough) it is important to realise that the traffic will not be spread evenly during the day - traffic will dramatically increase during a 'bulge' when an event or conference is on; on changeover days or at peak commuter times for station users. And that is on the quoted visitor numbers in the developers application. SnOasis can actually hold 3 times that many people, so the real situation may be several times worse than this. What that means to you is that if you run a business or live near the B1113 you face massive queues. But just moving won't help much either because the whole A12/14 system, especially the interchange at Copdock could become gridlocked. The SnOasis proposals only envisage some minor improvements to sliproads at Copdock, yet traffic volumes from SnOasis could increase traffic dramatically on the interchange. Everyone locally knows that the A12 and A14 regularly come to a grinding halt and are sometimes blocked all with the traffic diverted through tiny villages- a situation that will only get worse due to the extra volume of SnOasis traffic.

All other comparable ski centres have direct motorway access, but SnOasis, the biggest in the world is served by a 'B' road. Given the current severe overload on the A14; the Copdock Mill Interchange and local roads such as the one through Sproughton, we cannot believe that major road improvements are not neccessary to accommodate the traffic from SnOasis. Our roads regularly grind to a halt even before the increase in traffic from the dock expansions at Felixstowe and Harwich, so the SnOasis traffic is likely to produce gridlock for many miles around the proposed site.

Far from helping, the railway station actually increases the problem. The development proposals envisage that only 8% of SnOasis visitors will come by train, yet the station will significantly clog local roads because the Gt. Blakenham level crossing could be closed for an extra 15 minutes every hour. Add that to the 500 or so commuters expected to use the station every day and we may have complete chaos. We have an opportunity to convince a Government Inspector to force the developer to change his mind at the Public Inquiry. As a minimum we believe that there MUST be a separate access road and junction onto the A14 from the SnOasis site as well as substantial improvements to the A12/A14 Copdock interchange.

How many people will actually come to SnOasis ? We can't be sure how many visitors will actually come to SnOasis. Its a case of  'pick a number' because the number of visitors expected has been a moveable feast and since 2003 the developers have delivered an amazingly wide range of figures which we list below. This makes it easy to confuse the true impact SnOasis will have on the surrounding community in terms of traffic, noise and pollution. Why this confusion? We suspect we know. By keeping the visitor numbers quoted in the planning application low, it appears to lessen the impact on the surrounding road network and reduces the need for expensive upgrades to it. But at the relatively low numbers of visitors presented in the proposal to the MSDC planning meeting (if you call just under a million visitors low !), the Economic Impact Study prepared by consultants DTZ Pieda produces a barely adequate rate of return on the huge sum of money invested – way below a normal investment proposition.

I was misquoted !! When tackled at a packed meeting at Sproughton’s Tithe Barn in 2004 on the huge variances in the figures the developer claimed he had been misquoted in the local printed media, had never been interviewed by the East Anglian Daily Times, on BBC TV he hadn't’t meant visitors but footfalls and BBC Look East must have made a mistake when quoting 4 million visitors.! At the same meeting he also faithfully promised Sproughton Parish Council that "a detailed and thorough traffic survey would be undertaken in the village centre."  Unsurprisingly to those local people who have received similar undertakings from the developer on a whole range of matters the survey has yet to be carried out. This fact was revealed to the Planning Committee on April 20th 2006 and, yes it was totally ignored !!