An important step in the Goole rail factory took place this morning with Siemens officially submitting the planning application for the Goole rail factory, test track and office block. The test track is not to be confused with the proposed new 5-mile test ring with has also been looked at by Siemens and remains at an early stage.
This is great news and moves the project on considerably. The hope is that the planning application should be relatively non-controversial, enabling swift approval to be granted. Once approved, work will be able to begin on site.
We are in local council election season, so I have been fairly amused to see various local Labour members and candidates trying to claim some sort of credit for this project. I try to keep politics out of this issue but, just for the record, the facts are clear: it was David Cameron’s Government who provided the £13million for the link road to enable the site to be developed and I was the Minister who signed off on the site to be designated an Enterprise Zone. In actual fact, Labour have been trying to block the rail factory with one Labour MP spreading all sorts of falsehoods about this project.
When I was elected in 2010, all sorts of promises had been made about what was then called Capital Park, but I very quickly found out that nothing had been progressed and the site remained a legal mess. It took the dedicated work of civil servants and millions of pounds from the Conservative Government to sort this out, get the link road built and get the site marketed to investors.
I’m all for partnership working, but given Labour councillors in our area have done nothing to work with me over the years, it’s a bit rich seeing them trying to link themselves to this project now.
I’m sorry to raise politics but given we are in election silly season, I do need to correct the record.
Andrew
Photo - Andrew poses with Prime Minister David Cameron during a visit to the Capital Park site
