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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
It is a joy to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for giving me an early opportunity to examine the issue and make some comments.
The effectiveness of the United Kingdom’s strategic road network is vital to long-term economic growth, providing the means to move people and freight between our centres of industry and population. In June, the Government announced plans to increase the capital provision for critical transport infrastructure through an unprecedented programme of road investments worth more than £30 billion. Last year we announced proposals to upgrade one of the most congested sections of trunk road in England: the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge—a section that I know well. That 25-mile length of road carries up to 85,000 vehicles a day, which is significantly more than it was ever designed to accommodate, and is the reason why it has become such a frequent source of delay and frustration for motorists. Heavy goods vehicles make up an unusually high proportion of the traffic on the road, contributing to difficult and stressful driving conditions for other motorists and reducing average speeds still further. However, for commercial road users, congestion presents a cost to business efficiency, making journey times slow and unpredictable and increasing fuel consumption as vehicles are often forced to queue. I used to drive a road tanker and understand that problem all too well.
The A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge is part of a strategic road corridor, which links the midlands to the east coast ports. In addition, it accommodates long-distance movements between the north of England and the south-east via the M11 motorway, as well as a growing volume of local and commuter traffic in what has become one of Britain’s most successful economic hot spots. That mix of local and long-distance traffic is expected to get significantly worse as the economy continues to recover, and one of the aims of the A14 scheme is therefore to separate those making local trips from those passing through the region.
I shall comment now on a couple of questions, so that I do not run out of time. My hon. Friend asked whether EU funding had been secured, and the answer is that it is too early in the development of the project to be able to say yes or no. As to traffic being forced on to other roads, it is interesting to note that the alternative route via the A428 and the A1 is 30 miles, as against 18 miles on the A14. That would be an additional 14 miles, and anyone driving a truck doing eight or nine miles to the gallon would—never mind the lost time—easily be able to work out that with the level of tolls we propose it would be a no-brainer to stay on the toll road and not increase pressure on other local infrastructure. Added to that, a shortage of residential property in Cambridge is fuelling house price inflation in the region, but new housing developments cannot proceed without better infrastructure. The A14 scheme provides the key to unlock a number of major housing developments along the trunk road corridor and is critical to the plans of the local authorities in the area.
The case for improving the A14 in the area is overwhelming. Other rail freight and public transport-based solutions have already been considered, and improvements, including the Cambridge guided busway, have already been made to help to take some of the load off the A14. Significant growth in traffic volumes on this section of the A14 is forecast, however, and without improvement the problem will only worsen. The Government therefore announced a funding commitment of £1.5 billion in June this year to support improvements to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, together with a challenging development programme that will see the proposed improvement scheme complete and open to traffic by the end of the decade.
The construction and maintenance of the United Kingdom’s trunk roads and motorway network is mostly funded by central Government. The introduction of tolls to fund or part-fund major capital investments in the road network is, however, a well established principle. Many of our estuarial bridge and tunnel crossings, including the Mersey tunnels, the River Severn crossings and the Dartford crossing, are tolled, but the M6 toll, which opened in December 2003 to bypass a heavily trafficked section of the M6 through Birmingham, is currently the only principal road in Britain to be tolled. Proposals to toll part of the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon improvement were announced as part of the Government’s commitment in June.
The Government have previously stated that, although they have no intention to toll existing capacity on Britain’s trunk road and motorway network, where investment in new infrastructure constitutes a significant transformation of the existing route the option to introduce tolls on new sections of road is seen as a means of making the capital investment more affordable. Such a situation exists on the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. The proposed scheme, at £1.5 billion, constitutes more than a 10th of the Highways Agency’s entire capital budget to the end of the decade and the transport and economic benefits of the improvement to the east of England, in particular the Cambridge sub-region, are significant.
The Government will still bear the brunt of the capital costs associated with the scheme, but it is fair that the road users who will benefit most should make a contribution to the construction costs. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal discussed the impact of the charge on the people and businesses in East Anglia, the current levels of congestion and delay on this section of road already result in a significant cost to those living and working in the region. The local authorities and the local enterprise partnership in the Cambridgeshire area are highly supportive of the scheme and have also been asked to make a contribution to its development. As a result, some £100 million has been pledged by those bodies to offset some of the costs to Government of the scheme.
Tolling therefore makes the A14 scheme more affordable. An important principle underpinning the tolling strategy for the A14 is that tolls, while making a meaningful contribution towards the cost of the scheme, should not deter motorists from using the new road, particularly when making long-distance trips through the region. Tariffs will therefore be kept as low as possible, with light vehicles being expected to pay around £1 or £1.50 at current-day prices and heavy vehicles paying around double that cost. It is anticipated that tolls will be charged seven days a week, but that overnight trips will be free. That may encourage some commercial operators to use the road at night when it is expected to be less busy.
A second principle that remains fundamental to the development of this scheme has been to channel the right traffic on to the right roads, separating long-distance through-traffic from local traffic. The proposed scheme makes provision for local and commuter traffic to use a new side-road network between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which is toll-free and which eliminates much of the conflict between local and strategic users.
Most toll roads in Britain and throughout Europe require road users to stop at toll plazas to pay, but if we are to eliminate congestion on this section of road, the introduction of physical barriers is not the solution. The Highways Agency is therefore proposing a free-flow tolling system, in which vehicles are identified using cameras or tag devices and payments are made electronically or by smartphone without delaying road users. I should point out that we do not expect drivers to use their smartphones while driving. The system works in a similar way to the London congestion charge, using technology that is now well proven and collection systems that have proved to be effective in practice.
The tolling proposals for the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon scheme were set out in a public consultation exercise that ended last weekend, together with the Highways Agency’s proposed scheme alignment. More than 5,000 people attended a series of exhibitions staged in towns and villages along the route and nearly 1,000 people provided their views by completing the Highways Agency’s online questionnaire. Discussions took place between the Highways Agency and the various local authorities in the surrounding area and the consultation received a high level of publicity in the press and broadcast media in Cambridge, Huntingdon and throughout the east of England. That was the first in a series of consultation exercises that will take place before a development consent order application is submitted by the Highways Agency in the autumn of 2014. Although it is a little early to comment on the results of the recently closed first consultation, it is clear that aspects of the tolling proposals have been high on the agenda—not least because of the activities of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal.
Mr Goodwill
I asked my officials about that. The consultation was focused on the area where the road is to be built because of the effect on local communities. If anyone has had involvement in the High Speed 2 project, they will know that it is the communities near such projects that are likely to have the strongest views. Those further afield who will benefit from the scheme may well feed in their views but were not given the opportunity to contribute through road shows. I intend, however, to have regular meetings with representatives of the freight and logistics industry, as I am sure they will have views to voice.
Finding the right highway solution, which is both affordable and fair, remains a priority for the Government. The results of the consultation exercise, when they are published later in the year, should provide an important indication of public opinion and will help the Highways Agency as it develops the scheme proposals. It remains clear, however, that to do nothing to improve this overcrowded section of our trunk road network is really not an option and that traffic congestion in the Cambridge and Huntingdon area will worsen without improvement and will constrain economic growth in the wider east of England in decades to come.