Go Ahead seem to be going ahead with their proposed plans to build an electric bus depot on Garth Road, SM4. It's a residential road with an industrial area on it, as well as the local council tip/Garth Road Household Refuse and Recycling Centre. This doubles up as their depot for their refuse vehicles and the council school buses. There is also a cemetery on the road.

The road struggles with traffic (especially at rush hour). It's quite a busy road during the daytime and already has 6-8 buses per hour running along it (some of these are double-deckers). This, coupled with the existing industrial estate, you often get standstill traffic when larger vehicles need to negotiate passing each other. It has priority narrowings/traffic calming and cars parked on both sides.

There are a number of concerns that local residents and businesses have:

• Impact on traffic
• Impact on resident's parking spaces - given the depot workers only have 12 parking spaces among themselves
• Pedestrian safety
• Damage to parked vehicles
• Degradation of the road surface and the underlying materials as the current construction isn't up to the latest standards
• Safety of electric buses (especially given the increase in recent e-bus fires) - especially given they're going to be stored and charged in the proposed depot
• Noise pollution and environmental impact on local residents and neighboring houses - this includes noise from repair works and bus washing
• The depot will be in operation 24/7, so the above won't necessarily be limited to day times or weekdays

We need as many signatures as possible by the 20th of February to show that Garth Road isn't a suitable location for the new bus depot.