Land Use Developments

3MG - Ditton

 3MG (Mersey Multimodal Gateway) was previously know as Ditton Strategic Rail Freight Park. It will support a number of local, regional and strategic objectives regarding the sustainable movement of goods and materials, as outlined in the Government's Transport White Paper, the Northwest Regional Freight Strategy and in Halton's Local Transport Plan (LTP). The programme will realise the potential for developing a major new rail/road freight handling and logistics park at Ditton covering roughly 180 hectares. It will build upon the established assets of the location to create a sustainable 21st century freight park which is a flagship for the region and which will create up to 5,000 new jobs.

Landscaping and environmental improvements will be achieved through the implementation of a Landscaping Strategy. This will mitigate any potentially negative environmental implications and include the creation of landscaped 'buffer zones'. In addition, areas of land currently classified as Brownfield will be comprehensively remediated, resulting in a great overall improvement to the environmental quality of the area.

3MG Partners include:
- The Stobart Group
- O'Connor's (A division of the Stobart Group)
- Halton Borough Council
- Government Office North West
- Northwest Development Agency

For further information go to the 3MG website.

Parkside

There are proposals to build a Strategic Rail Freight Interchange on the former Parkside colliery site in St Helens. The site would provide up to 715,000 sq m of rail-served warehousing and distribution buildings, a container depot, train assembly area and cargo exchange. The public consultation period ended in May 2007.