A303

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Robert Goodwill

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) on securing this debate on the future of the A303. I know this subject is of great importance to him and to other hon. Friends and Opposition Members. I am aware that he has raised issues about the performance of the A303 at Stonehenge and details of the Department's feasibility study during business questions.

The A303 is an important trunk road that passes in close proximity to the Stonehenge world heritage site, and the issue of improving this road has been considered by successive Governments, as we heard. I very much recognise the strategic importance of this corridor and therefore of finding solutions to its problems. Before I respond to the points raised by my hon. Friend, the Member for Salisbury, it is perhaps worth taking the opportunity both to set out this Government’s position on investment in the strategic road network, but also the history of proposals for major improvements to the A303, as well as setting out how my Department will consider options for future investments. Indeed, I hope that I can make progress where even Mrs Thatcher failed.

Before I go on, I will respond to a couple of the points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden). He recognised that the previous Government had been engaged in a degree of stop-go—mainly stop in terms of the A303. Although he recognised that fact, there was no straightforward apology, and I was rather perturbed to hear him say that when they left office, they had a costed plan. Nothing was costed when the previous Government left office. The public finances were in a catastrophic state. Indeed, when they had some money in 1997, when they took office, they announced a moratorium, so I will take no lessons from the Opposition on how to organise a road investment programme.

We have controlled spending so that we can increase genuine investment, and we will build on the previous work done in planning the feasibility of this route. On timing, we have set ourselves an ambitious programme, and we hope to have some news in the autumn statement. Indeed, when the announcements are made in the autumn, it will be interesting to hear what the shadow Chancellor says about following through on the promises when the Labour party writes its manifesto.

[Alison Seabeck]

The Minister is talking about financing and the envelope in which we are all working. Has consideration ever been given—this will not be popular in some parts—to tolling a tunnel and paying for it that way?

[Mr Goodwill]

I made it clear in front of the Select Committee last week that we are certainly not going down that route. The decision on the A14 Huntingdon bypass makes that very clear indeed. In fact, I was reported as saying we have drawn a line in the sand on that one.

As part of the progress we are making, Department officials met local stakeholders in Taunton on 24 January to discuss the scope of the study, and officials are working to incorporate the views of stakeholders when finalising the scope.

I said that it may be useful to set out the historical background in terms of the previous proposals for major strategic improvements to the road. Proposals to complete the dualling of the A303 were made in the 2002 London to south-west and south Wales multi-modal study, and, together with improvements to the A358 between Ilminster and Taunton, they could have created a second strategic route to the south-west. However, by 2007, with the cancellation of the Amesbury to Berwick Down scheme owing to increased costs and the south-west region’s conclusion that some schemes could not be funded from the regional funding allocation, the Highways Agency was no longer able to progress the proposals.

My hon. Friend may also be aware that Somerset county council held a summit with other relevant stakeholders in 2012, the outcome of which was a commitment for further work on the relative prioritisation of potential interventions and consideration of possible funding avenues. A grouping of local authorities and local enterprise partnerships produced an initial analysis and business case for future improvements to the A303 corridor, to reiterate the importance of investment in the corridor. This work provides a useful starting point for more detailed work into the consideration of possible solutions to the problems along the A303.

On this Government’s commitment to infrastructure investment, we have already announced increased levels of Government funding to deliver improvements all around the strategic road network, targeted at supporting economic growth. Our commitment to deliver a step change in future investment in transport infrastructure was made clear by the Chancellor in his statement of 26 June last year, which announced the conclusions of the Government’s 2013 spending review.

The Treasury’s Command Paper, “Investing in Britain’s Future”, set out that the Government will invest more than £28 billion in enhancements and maintenance of both national and local roads, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned. This includes £10.7 billion for major national road projects and £4.9 billion for local major projects. More than £12 billion has been allocated for maintenance, with nearly £6 billion for repairs to local roads and £6 billion for maintenance of strategic roads, including resurfacing 80% of that network.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury is aware, for future investment planning, the Highways Agency is conducting its route-based strategy process, which involves local stakeholders in the consideration of future priorities. It might be helpful to say a little more about the agency’s approach, because that is the mechanism by which we will consider the investment needs of the entire strategic road network.

In our May 2012 response to the recommendations of Alan Cook’s report, “A fresh start to the strategic road network”, we agreed to develop a programme of route-based strategies to inform the identification of future transport investment for the entire strategic network. Route-based strategies will provide a smarter approach to investment planning throughout the network and see greater collaboration with local stakeholders to determine the nature, need and timing of future investment that might be required on the network. We will produce a uniform set of strategies for the entire network, including the A303, as part of the south west peninsula route-based strategy.

The Highways Agency completed a series of local engagement events last autumn to help identify performance issues and future challenges. I welcome the enthusiasm with which stakeholders in the south-west, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency, have participated so far. The agency and the Department will use the evidence to prioritise and take forward a programme of work to identify indicative solutions that will cover operations, maintenance and, if appropriate, potential road improvement schemes. Route-based strategies therefore provide an opportunity for stakeholders to provide evidence about problems on the A303, so that the need for improvements can be considered and a plan for future investment developed.

My hon. Friend highlighted the issue of congestion on the A303 and the problems experienced as the road passes the Stonehenge world heritage site. The Government very much recognise such issues and the importance of transport infrastructure to support the economy. We are committed to identifying and funding early solutions to the longstanding problems on the A303-A30-A358 corridor, initially by undertaking a feasibility study.