Brexit lorry park request for Anglesey industrial estate rejected

A request to allow Anglesey Showground's park-and-ride to be used to host a post-Brexit lorry facility has been rejected by council leaders.

Land is needed for a potential customs check on HGVs arriving from the Republic of Ireland in Holyhead.

But the council's executive rejected the bid by the Anglesey Agricultural Society to use the park-and-ride site on Mona Industrial Estate.

The land is leased to the showground by the council.

The council leadership said the proposal was "wholly inappropriate" and would lead to "round the clock traffic" for communities near the showground and industrial estate where the facility would be housed.

Holyhead Port is the second busiest passenger ferry port in the UK, with ships carrying more than two million people between Wales and Ireland every year.

The port also sees more than 400,000 freight lorries crossing the Irish Sea annually.

"The application breaks the terms of the lease quite clearly," said Bob Parry, who is in charge of the council's highway portfolio.

"But what worries me is the impact on the village of Gwalchmai and the crossroads at Rhostrehwfa, who would be faced with hundreds of lorries every day as they come off and back onto the A55," he told the executive meeting on Monday.

Another executive member Carwyn Jones accused the UK government of "running around like headless chickens" as they "scramble" to hit the end of the EU withdrawal transition period on 31 December.

"They can't sit in London and just look at Google maps, and we can't be strong-armed into accepting a site that isn't appropriate," he said.

The council executive said other more appropriate sites had been identified for a potential lorry facility, including one on the outskirts of Holyhead itself, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A spokesperson for HMRC said it was "working closely across government, with the Welsh Government and with ports to understand requirements and implement infrastructure changes in line with the support announced by the [UK] government".

"Alongside engaging with ports to understand what infrastructure may be required, we are reviewing a number of potential sites which are close to ports, and near strategic road networks, including options to support Holyhead."

Anglesey Agricultural Society treasurer Edward Thomas Jones said "using this site for the lorries would have helped us financially" but he understood councillors' concerns and accepted the decision.

"Now we're looking at other options for the site," he said.