A1: Peterborough to Blyth

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission, and that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Please give each other plenty of room when seated and when entering and leaving the Chamber. I will call Alicia Kearns to move the motion. I will then call Gareth Davies to make a short speech, and the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the safety of the A1 between Peterborough and Blyth.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. The A1 is not fit for purpose. I am not saying that for dramatic effect; that is the case, and it is why we are here today. The A1 is failing us as a critical artery for our country and a critical piece of national infrastructure. Ultimately, it is failing the people of Rutland and Melton. We are tired of heartbreaking accidents and severe delays.

It is between Peterborough and Blyth where the road is most grievously failing our communities. That 72-mile stretch serves 1.9 million people, and the issues are numerous. We have substandard junctions; dangerous right-turn movements across the carriageway; safety issues, including accident blackspots all along the corridor; a lack of alternative routes during closures; severe congestion hotspots, which often lead to queuing on the carriageway; a large number of local junctions and small service areas with extremely poor merging, which I drive through every single week as I go to and from my constituency; and slip roads made of just a handful of metres.

Critically, there is also a lack of safety technology, including CCTV and even SOS telephones, along this section of the road, so those in danger are unable to get the help that they need. As a result, the rate of fatal collisions on this section of the A1 is significantly higher than the strategic road network average for an A road dual carriageway. Over the past five years, 27 deaths have been recorded, and there have been 201 closures—more than one a fortnight. The average clear-up and therefore closure time for an incident is five hours, although more recently the road has been closed for over 10 hours at a time. That is not just an inconvenience for our communities; it is an issue of strategic importance for our economy and our country.

There is only one meaningful solution: to upgrade this section of the A1 to a three-lane motorway standard. Over the Christmas gooch, I was looking at how that would benefit the Government and our country. Forecasts by Midlands Connect found that improvements to the corridor would deliver over £138 million in benefits to the region and the wider economy. The A1 is vital for moving freight across the whole UK. It connects businesses with major ports on the east coast such as Felixstowe, Grimsby, Immingham and—via the M25—Dover, and it unites us as a country, from London to Edinburgh.

At the northern end of the corridor lies Associated British Ports’ Humber port complex, handling £75 billion of goods per annum and forming a vital part of British and international supply chains. By investing in the functioning of the road and improving the reliability of journey times, we can grow our world-leading logistics sector and improve our supply chain resilience. The UK’s logistics sector is clustered all along the A1, and is heavily reliant on good connectivity and high road standards to operate cost-effectively. Heavy goods vehicles make up 25% of all vehicles that use the corridor. That is more than the national average of 12%, so it is more than double the typical trunk road.

I am incredibly proud, as all my colleagues will know, of the reputation of the east midlands for food, drink and agricultural products. We have the largest concentration of food manufacturing, storage and distribution in the whole of England. Positioned at the heart of a supply chain worth over £4 billion, the people of Rutland, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Cambridgeshire grow over 15% of the UK’s food. Investing in those vital upgrades to the A1 will reduce costs to the agri-food sector, speed things up, get people moving, give businesses the confidence to grow, and encourage a greater amount of onshoring in sectors such as agriculture along the corridor. It would also allow local authorities to be more strategic in the east midlands in how they use available land.

Those upgrades are all the more necessary when we consider that the east midlands has long been stifled by under-investment in critical infrastructure. Despite our amazing potential, spending per head on transport for the last 20 years has been 60% less than the UK average. In 2020-21, the east midlands received the lowest spending per head in the entire country—the lowest for any region. If we were funded at a level equivalent to the UK average, we would have an extra £1 billion a year to spend on transport in the east midlands, which would revolutionise our entire area.

The state of the A1 is not just endangering our residents but holding back growth in the counties of Rutland and Leicestershire, and across the country. How can we deliver more goods and boost growth across the UK when this vital artery is constantly choked by delays and accidents? I ask the Minister to support Highways England to deliver a modernisation programme with urgent safety improvements within the road investment strategy 2, or RIS2, period. The closure of substandard junctions, the provision of a concrete central barrier and better active traffic management would improve road safety considerably.

As chair of the A1 MPs working group, I ask the Minister to work with all my colleagues, many of whom were unable to come today—two have valiantly turned up—to help us upgrade the A1 in the long term to a three-lane, motorway-standard road all the way from Peterborough to Blyth. My neighbours and I are united on this issue, our councils are united on this issue and this is precisely the kind of long-term infrastructure project that will generate growth as we recover from covid.

Levelling up the A1 can be a flagship programme for this Government, because it perfectly encapsulates the levelling-up agenda. It will level up our transport options, level up the safety of our communities, level up opportunity for our businesses, level up connectivity across our nation, level up opportunities to export and level up the east midlands, which, for too long, has not seen the investment it deserves.