Residents in Heronsgate fear a planned motorway storage depot will shatter for ever the peace of their tranquil community.

Work will begin January on a 25 acre green field site near Junction 17 of the M25 in advance of a carriageway widening project to start early next year.

When finished the site will be home to more than one hundred workmen, dozens of giant lorries, plant machinery, and a giant concrete crushing machine which, residents say, will spew clouds of dust as far as Rickmansworth and Chorleywood.

Alarmed members of the Heronsgate Residents’ Association say the project, similar in size and layout to the M1 widening depot near Hemel Hempstead, will be forced upon them unless urgent legal steps are taken to stop it.

Unlike the vast majority of building projects – including conservatories and home extensions – a planning law loophole means no permission is required from Three Rivers District Council for the development.

Instead project managers Skanska Balfour Beatty have issued a General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) – which allows for ‘minor’ or ‘temporary’ projects to forgo the often troublesome planning process.

As the site will be removed in 2012 the contractors issued on October 31 the order to Three Rivers District Council arguing its temporary nature qualified it for a GPO. Council officers have only until November 28 to respond.

Members of the Residents Association, however, are furious; both at the proposed plans and the short notice received. They are demanding that TRDC take legal action to force the project through the proper planning channels.

Association Chairman Peter Smyth, who was only told of the plan three weeks ago, said: “This will have a devastating effect on the community.

“The effect on traffic alone will be horrendous, then there’s the pollution that will be caused by the concrete crusher.

“They say that it is temporary but it won’t seem like that to people living here.”

The association claims that TRDC has the power to delay construction and order a rethink. It will distribute up to 5,000 ready to send letters of protest in support of this argument tomorrow.

Mr Smyth, an association member for nine years, added that if the council did not do this then his members would apply for a privately funded judicial review, claiming the order invalid.

The committee, which also fears the site will later be selected as a legal Gypsy encampment, claim that a viable alternative to the plan is readily available – the existing depot at Junction Eight of the M1.

Mr Smyth added: “This is a green field site in a conservation area. No other development would be allowed here so why this?”

Documents seen by the Watford Observer also confirm that plans are afoot for a 20 acre dumping ground in a field on the other side of the motorway, where the hundreds of tonnes of earth and rubble created in the widening works will be dumped.

This project, however, will require full planning permission as it cannot be deemed temporary.

Council Leader Ann Shaw, who also lives near the site, said she was doing all she could to challenge the order.