Road Infrastructure

Alan Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered road infrastructure.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I am conscious that many right hon. and hon. Members are in the room; I shall try to give way as much as I can and leave time for other Members to make speeches.

It is somewhat fortuitous that this debate is taking place today. According to the front page of The Times—I am sure it can, as ever, be believed—today is the day when the transport investment strategy for the next decade is to be announced, which will include a £1 billion per year fund to allow local authorities to bid for bypass projects. Can I be the first hon. Member in this House to make an oral application to the Roads Minister—for bypasses for Little Common, off the A259, and for Hurst Green, off the A21? I am sure I will not be the last applicant today.

Both those roads are busy, single-lane A roads that cause congestion and danger through two villages in East Sussex. They have the misfortune to be managed by Highways England. If the Roads Minister came and visited both roads—he would be absolutely welcome—he might be surprised that they are part of the Highways England portfolio. The reason is that they are deemed to be trunk roads, off the A27 and M25 respectively. The villages badly need to be bypassed, but Highways England naturally focuses its resources on the motorway or dual carriageway network within its portfolio.

As my colleagues here today will be aware, there are only 11 km of dual carriageway in the entire county of East Sussex. My ask is that the new fund should be accessible for local authorities to deliver bypasses, even if that bypass would be off a Highways England road. It is a misfortune for the two roads that I mentioned that they are controlled by Highways England—it is illogical—but my concern is that the new, £1 billion fund is available only to local authority-managed roads. That would be an obstacle for those two roads. I ask the Roads Minister that the issue of qualification should be type of road, rather than the entity managing it.

The A21 is a trunk road that runs from the M25 through Kent, then through East Sussex and down to the coastal town of Hastings. Highways England is continuing the dualling from Tonbridge to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, but it thereafter turns to single file when it enters East Sussex—a bit of discrimination, I would say, that benefits Kent. Some miles further on, the road goes through the heart of the village of Hurst Green in my constituency. In 2014, the A21 was deemed by the Road Safety Foundation as the most dangerous road in the UK—so much so that one section of dual carriageway that we do have in East Sussex has been closed and coned off as a single carriageway due to the dangers of speeding.

A bypass for Hurst Green was in the pipeline and homes were purchased by Highways England, but it was postponed in the 2010 spending review. Now those homes are being resold. Last year, Highways England announced that it would introduce average speed limits on to the A21, from the end of the new works at Tunbridge Wells all the way down to Hastings. Although that would not improve or remove the congestion, or decrease travel times, it would perhaps do something about the appalling safety record.

The villagers and I were therefore dismayed to find out last year that Highways England had decided that that work would not be forthcoming and that better options are available. None of those options has been given to us. I am afraid it just compounds our issue in East Sussex: that Highways England does not appear interested in our road network.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a dual carriageway where one lane is closed off because of speeding. Does he have any views on average speed cameras, which the Scottish Government have installed on some roads in Scotland? They meet a bit of resistance from drivers but have been proven to make roads safer and they control speeding on those roads.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. The project put forward by Highways England was to have average speed cameras all the way down through the village—there is a primary school in the heart of the village. The A21 was modelled on a road in Scotland—it may be the one he referred to—which apparently reduced the traffic accident rate by 80%. We were very excited to copy that fine example from Scotland, so were dismayed when the scheme was cancelled. I very much take the point and I hope Highways England will do so as well.

My second example is the A259. Again, that road is managed by Highways England, unfortunately for us. It runs along the Sussex coast and takes over from the A27, which itself is in bad need of dualling, as championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and others. As the A259 approaches Bexhill at a village called Little Common, it acts as a dangerous bottleneck. Again, the village was due to be bypassed, as part of the Highways England south coast trunk road, which was due to come from Devon all the way to Dover and give us a much better transport system. That was scrapped in 2001.

Fortunately, a new link road was built by East Sussex County Council and our local enterprise partnership, with Government funding, and has opened between Bexhill and Hastings. It opened last year and has delivered not just improved journey times, but 50,000 square feet of land for a business park and 2,000 new homes—it is as much a business road as a transport system.

East Sussex County Council and our local enterprise partnership are now building a second road off that new link road, so we are effectively now two-thirds through bypassing a town of 40,000 residents. The last remaining section is for a bypass around the remainder of Little Common, which would deliver a bypass for the entirety of Bexhill and make it easier for the Sussex coastal towns to join up.

I have asked my local authorities and the local enterprise partnership to consider whether the housing infrastructure fund—the £20 billion fund announced by the Chancellor last year—could be tapped for Hurst Green and Little Common. The issue is that, having delivered the link road with its room for 2,000 houses, the local authorities rightly feel that they have already delivered housing and do not need any further. I will certainly be asking them to apply for the new bypass fund, but we first need clarity from the Roads Minister that they will be allowed to apply, given that the road is managed by Highways England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan; I congratulate you on managing to fit in 12 additional speakers after the opening speech. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing the debate, and further congratulate him because the debate was originally due to be about Southern Rail; it was changed following the debate in the main Chamber yesterday. That saves me from having to speak in another debate on Southern Rail. We have seen how popular the hon. Gentleman’s debate is.

Given the comments from the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), I had to keep checking the title of the debate in case it was called the “Bypass Bid” debate; it certainly felt like that is what it was. It shows just how passionate and understanding of the needs of their communities hon. Members are, and how much demand there is on the road infrastructure network. I look forward to the Minister’s replies to each individual bid as we go forward.

The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle highlighted a good mix of local issues and the strategic thinking that needs to accompany their resolution. He was correctly angry about having the UK’s most dangerous road in his constituency, and I wish him luck in his ambition for improving its safety with the speed camera solution and through other bypasses that were mentioned. That brought back memories for me: I remember doing a school project way back in 1988 about local bypasses. I had actually been able to access plans from 1947, when the bypasses were first planned, and we are still waiting on them. That story has come out time and again today.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle about strategic issues around traffic enforcement moving from the police to local authorities. I think that has benefits, although it can also put pressure on local authorities. I also fully support the comments about pavement parking. I also did a blindfold tour of my local town centre, which certainly illustrated to me that vehicles on pavements are a further obstruction that does not need to be there.

We certainly had quite a run through of hon. Members. The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) focused on strategy, delivery and issues including further funding pressures. I look forward to the Minister’s response to that. I liked the good, interesting comments from the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) about beautiful infrastructure; I am actually a civil engineer by trade, so I appreciate infrastructure. Clearly, the issues of congestion, air pollution and national parks need to be addressed.

The hon. Members for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and for South Suffolk also bid for bypasses, while the hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) talked of a North Devon link road to allow holidaymakers quicker access to Devon during August. Perhaps if the road gets the upgrade he is looking for, more Scottish holidaymakers will be able to access it before August, because our holiday period starts at the end of June. That might extend his area’s holiday season.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) highlighted issues about major junctions, while the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) highlighted issues with the A14. The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) highlighted that house building can cause issues, which again shows the need for strategic thinking. For me, that is also an issue for strategic local planning, in terms of the council looking ahead at where it will build houses and what infrastructure is needed to accompany that.

The hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) highlighted the A40. Listening to some hon. Members’ contributions, including his, took me back to listening to maiden speeches, which can give us a tour through constituencies and a reminder of the beautiful villages that exist. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) again highlighted a bypass, while the final contribution, from the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), again highlighted the lack of joined-up thinking between Highways England and local councils, which needs to be resolved.

I genuinely wish hon. Members all the best with their bids for funding. It seems to me that the £1 billion fund announced today will not go far enough, so I ask the Minister to look down the back of his couch to see if he can find more money. Certainly, investment in infrastructure leads to job creation, an economic return and, as we have heard, can increase safety and improve air quality. Any additional investment in roads in England and Wales will hopefully have Barnett consequentials and would lead to further investment in Scotland.

I remind the hon. Member for Eastleigh that this is not a majority Conservative Government but a minority one. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, who put in the first bid, may have seen how successful the Democratic Unionist party was in securing money from the UK Government. Maybe Conservative Back Benchers need to get together and do a wee bit of backroom bidding with their Government colleagues.

Some people are for investment in road infrastructure and some are against, but nobody here today spoke out against. Earlier, I touched on my being a civil engineer by background; I also now have the role of spokesperson for transport and infrastructure for the Scottish National party, so I am certainly all in favour of strategic road upgrading. However, it needs to be strategic, and it also needs to link in with other transport upgrades. We have heard about safe cycling, which is important, and we also need to invest in rail and public transport so that we have better connectivity; that all goes hand in hand.

On Scottish Government investment and looking at trunk road maintenance, the Scottish Government look for three strategic outcomes: improved journey times, reduced emissions to tackle climate change, improved air quality and health, and improved accessibility and affordability. Those have to be the Government’s key objectives when they look at their £1 billion investment fund. All hon. Members here certainly have local issues, but the Government have to look a bit more strategically.

Under the previous UK settlement, Scotland suffered from a lack of investment in roads. It took devolution and the Scottish Parliament’s coming into being to actually increase road investment. The SNP Government have taken that to a new level, with the M74 and M80 motorways and the recently completed M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh; it is actually incredible that it has taken until 2017 to have a continuous motorway link between the two biggest cities in Scotland.

We have heard about single carriageway roads in the debate, but rural Scotland actually has single-lane roads, which only allow cars to travel in one direction, with pull-off passing bays. Again, that shows the lack of investment over the years. Also, the “Road to the Isles”, the A830, was the last single-lane trunk road in the UK and was only upgraded in 2009 with the aid of European funding.

That is another concern going forward: what will happen to that European funding? Will the UK Government backfill that lack of money? Scotland secured £1.3 billion of investment from EU structural funds, which has allowed those important road upgrades. I would appreciate it if the Minister could answer that. I wish the Minister luck in answering all the bids for bypasses. I certainly support any additional expenditure on infrastructure and would like to see further Barnett consequentials and expenditure in Scotland.