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Page 11
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RESIDENTS WHO bought plots and built homes next to a rural haulage yard have lost their fight to stop the operator expanding.
Keith Parks, proprietor of Parks Haulage, has been given the goahead to keep up to eight trucks and 10 trailers at his County Durham depot, despite claims that expansion would damage the value of nearby houses.
One resident, whose designer home overlooks the yard in The Avenue, Burnhope, told a public inquiry earlier this year: "If any more wagons are allowed on to this site, it will prevent people even considering buying our properties. The only way to sell would be to reduce house prices, and that would cost us thousands of pounds."
Parks Haulage employs nine people and currently operates five vehicles transporting scrap metal around the country.
Granting its application, NorthEast Traffic Commissioner Tom MacCartney noted the haulage business had been in operation since 1969, when it was surrounded by fields. MacCartney also refused to impose a restriction on its operating times.
"The residents chose to buy plots and build homes knowing they would be living next to an operating centre," he concluded.