Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) is a rail-road intermodal freight terminal with an associated warehousing estate in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It ...

, England. The facility is located at the junctions between the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass, which ...

, A5 and

A428 road The A428 road is a major road in central and eastern England. It runs between the cities of Coventry and Cambridge by way of the county towns of Northampton and Bedford. Together with the A421, (and the A43, M40 and the A34), the eastern ...

s, east of

Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

and north of

Daventry Daventry ( , historically ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority in Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 Census Daventry had a population of 28,123, making ...

; it has a rail connection from the Northampton loop of the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

. The original development of approximately was built during the 1990s. of which only DIRFT South (''DIRFT Railport'') had a direct rail connection. An extension, often referred to as ''DIRFTII'', of about received planning permission in 2005, and is designed to have all facilities rail connected – the first occupier of DIRFT2 was

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues an ...

, whose distribution centre reached completion in late 2011. A second extension ''DIRFTIII'', also rail connected, is now underway.

History

DIRFT

''Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal'' is part of a land development project undertaken by

Severn Trent Water Severn Trent plc is a water company based in Coventry, England. It supplies 4.6 million households and business across the Midlands and Wales. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the ...

on a site near Crick in Northamptonshire. The location, at junction 18 of the

in close proximity to the A5, A14 and M6 roads had been identified as early as 1978 as a "motorway orientated growth point". The ground area of the original DIRFT development is divided into three sections: DIRFT Central , DIRFT East , and DIRFT South by the A5 and A428 roads.Sources: * * The site first became operational on 27 May 1997, and was officially opened in November 1997 by

Anne, Princess Royal Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of ...

, at inception the facility included a warehouse operated for road haulage operator

Eddie Stobart Logistics Eddie Stobart Group is a British multimodal logistics company, with interests in road haulage, rail freight, deep sea and inland waterway transport systems and deep sea port, inland port and rail connected storage facilities, along with transpor ...

. The rail connected terminal was operated by Tibbett and Britten; construction of a rail connected warehouse was started in 1998, a second facility was constructed in 2000. DIRFT was one of the earliest post-

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover ...

road-rail intermodal terminals – the site includes rail connected terminals and traditional warehousing was designed to act as a regional node for rail freight flows to and from the

Port of Felixstowe The Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk, is the United Kingdom's busiest container port, dealing with 48% of Britain's containerised trade. In 2017, it was ranked as 43rd busiest container port in the world and 8th in Europe, with a ha ...

and the Channel Tunnel, it forms part of the UK network of the Trans-European Combined Transport network. The site was primarily developed by ''Severn Trent Property'', part of

. Early occupiers included

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

('Fastway RDC' operated by

DHL DHL is an American founded, German logistics company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service, which is a division of the German logistics firm Deutsche Post. The company group delivers over 1.8 billion parcels per year. ...

) (closed 2009), and

Mothercare Mothercare plc is a British retailer which specialises in products for expectant mothers and in general merchandise for children up to eight years of age. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap In ...

. In 2004, of undeveloped land on the site with a capacity for of warehousing was sold to a joint venture between

British Land The British Land Company plc is one of the largest property development and investment companies in the United Kingdom. The firm became a real estate investment trust when REITs were introduced in the UK in January 2007. It is headquartered in ...

and Rosemund; British Land subsequently let its holding to several customers including a warehouse let to

in 2005. Severn Trent plc sold its holding in DIRFT, as well as the DIRFTII site to

Prologis Prologis, Inc. is a real estate investment trust headquartered in San Francisco, California that invests in logistics facilities. The company was formed through the merger of AMB Property Corporation and Prologis in June 2011, which made Prologi ...

in 2006. In 2008

Malcolm Rail Malcolm, Malcom, Máel Coluim, or Maol Choluim may refer to: People * Malcolm (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Malcolm * Maol Choluim de Innerpeffray, 14th-century bishop-elect of Dunkeld Nobility * Máel ...

became the operator of the railport at DIRFT.

DIRFTII

In 2005 planning permission was granted for a rail connected westward expansion of the original site with a built ground area of over . The DIRFTII expansion was designed for rail connected warehousing allowing transfer between sea or channel tunnel born rail-freight and road transport or warehouse storage. Plans included facilities for containerised and side-loaded palletised rail freight.

acquired a grocery distribution centre in 2011, constructed by

VolkerFitzpatrick VolkerRail is a specialist railway infrastructure services company based in Doncaster, England, providing services across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is wholly owned by Netherlands-based VolkerWessels, a multi-disciplinary construct ...

(main contractor), construction work was completed in September 2011. As part of the development, a rail tunnel was built under the A5 road to connect DIRFTII to the rail network via the original DIRFT railport.

DIRFTIII

A further 7.5 million sq.ft. extension, DIRFTIII, was proposed for construction on the former

Rugby radio station __NOTOC__ Rugby Radio Station was a large radio transmission facility just east of the Hillmorton area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. The site straddled the A5 trunk road, with most of it in Warwickshire, and part on the other ...

site to the northwest of the current development. The proposal also included a large area of green space, named ''Lilbourne Meadows''. The development is a joint venture between ProLogis and ''Rugby Radio Station Limited Partnership (RRSLP)'' ( BT and

Aviva Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 18 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...

). The DIRFTIII site would also be rail connected, with over of warehousing over of land plus a HGV parking site. A related development is the ''Sustainable Urban Extension'' (SUE) built to the west of DIRFT as a suburb of Rugby – with over 6,000 homes planned. The development took on the name of Houlton and the first homeowners moved in during December 2017. A planning application to the

Infrastructure Planning Commission The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) was a non-departmental public body responsible for the examining and in certain circumstances the decision making body for proposed nationally significant infrastructure projects in England and Wales. Cr ...

(IPC) was submitted in 2011, and was approved in July 2014.

References

External links