DIRFT Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal is part of a land development project undertaken by
Severn Trent Water on a site near
Crick in Northamptonshire. The location, at junction 18 of the
M1 motorway 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. The site first became operational on 27 May 1997, and was officially opened in November 1997 by
Anne, Princess Royal, at inception the facility included a warehouse operated for road haulage operator
Eddie Stobart. a second facility was constructed in 2000. DIRFT was one of the earliest post-
Channel Tunnel 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 and the Channel Tunnel, it forms part of the UK network of the
Trans-European Combined Transport network.
Tesco ('Fastway RDC' operated by
DHL) (closed 2009), and
Mothercare. In 2004, of undeveloped land on the site with a capacity for of warehousing was sold to a
British Land/ Rosemound joint venture, British Land subsequently let its holding to several customers including a warehouse let to
Tesco in 2005. Severn Trent plc sold its holding in DIRFT, as well as the DIRFT II site to
Prologis in 2006. In 2008
Malcolm Rail became the operator of the railport at DIRFT.
DIRFT II In 2005 planning permission was granted for a rail connected westward expansion of the original site with a built ground area of over .
Tesco acquired a grocery distribution centre in 2011, constructed by
VolkerFitzpatrick (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 DIRFT II to the rail network via the original DIRFT railport.
DIRFT III A further 7.5 million sq.ft. extension, DIRFT III, was proposed for construction on the former
Rugby radio station 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). The DIRFT III 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 (IPC) was submitted in 2011, and was approved in July 2014. ==See also==