Transport (CSR)

Debate between Baroness Keeley and James Gray

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley]

I will come on to that point later, but it is difficult to see how any motorway, with increasingly heavy traffic thundering by at various times of the day, can be anything but noisy, so I sympathise with that problem.

The initial consultation run by the Highways Agency was dreadful. Having heard nothing at all about the scheme as the local MP, I received a leaflet on a Wednesday informing me that the consultation was due to start on Thursday and would run only until Saturday morning. Most of that short consultation time was during the working day, and across just two days, so most local people could not attend. Hardly any of the residents affected heard about the consultation or were able to attend at such short notice, and there are around 800 households right next to the motorway. Indeed, the few people who were able to attend were shocked to discover, having talked with the engineers present, that the project would entail significant work to move service cables and take the traffic physically closer to their homes and gardens.

We managed, at my insistence, to get the Highways Agency to attend a packed meeting of hundreds of residents. Indeed, we had to turn people away because it was not judged safe to let many more into the hall. The meeting turned into a series of angry exchanges, and the quality of information given by the Highways Agency was very poor. Residents were left feeling confused and with no information. That situation occurred under the previous Government, and I was as critical of the Transport Ministers then as I am now about the scheme, so it is in no way a partisan point. Since then, the Highways Agency has promised regular newsletters, but only one has emerged. It was initially delivered to entirely the wrong residential area, reaching none of the people who will be affected by the changes.

For my constituents, the environmental impact of the widening is a big worry. They are worried not only that traffic will be brought close to their homes but about what will happen to existing measures to deal with noise. There is an acoustic fence and a narrow barrier of trees at different points along the motorway, but that is all that stands between my constituents and all the traffic on the motorway. Indeed, the acoustic fence was installed only after much campaigning by my predecessor, Terry Lewis MP. Any changes to that fence or to the tree barrier would leave local residents much more exposed to noise and to visual and atmospheric pollution, which they do not want.

One resident has already experienced a distressing accident in which a heavy goods vehicle ploughed through the acoustic fence, down the bank and into her garden, killing the driver. She must now face the fact that it is planned to bring that traffic even closer to her home and garden. Another resident was concerned about the impact that the additional lane of traffic would have on the safety of his young children playing in the garden or on the street. Indeed, I understand that a sloping grassy bank with mature shrubs at the end of one small street will be replaced by a vertical brick wall.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady will forgive me, but perhaps she would return to the effect of the comprehensive spending review on the Department for Transport. I know that it is a general debate and that she is describing important constituency matters, but perhaps she would come back slightly to the topic of the debate.