Local Congestion: Investment

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of investments in local roads on traffic congestion and productivity in local areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, as set out in last year’s Transport Investment Strategy, our investment seeks to reduce congestion, raise productivity and support new housing. We estimate from investment appraisals that local major road schemes approved by the department since 2012 will produce an average of £4.50 return for every £1 invested. The department’s evaluations found that local major schemes have been successful in delivering reductions in congestion, often leading to better access to employment and local businesses.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the Minister. I am glad about the investment in motorways, bypasses and some of the other things to which she refers, but do we deal adequately with local congestion, which is hitting productivity and increasing air pollution and is frustrating for those of us sitting in traffic jams? Is she aware that the challenge fund rules under which smaller councils apply for capital are costly and a bureaucratic deterrent to spending the money that the Government have rightly made available for local roads?

[Baroness Sugg]

My noble friend raises an important point, and I know that she met recently with the Roads Ministers to discuss this. We have been investing heavily in motorways and it is right that we concentrate spending where it is needed most, but we know that other important roads have long gone underfunded. That is why we are consulting on introducing a major road network from 2020. That will provide a share of the national roads fund to invest in bypasses and road widening to help improve congestion. My noble friend also raised the point of the complexity of these processes. There are many different schemes available for additional funding to local authorities—which, of course, is welcome—but they can be complex. In last year’s Transport Investment Strategy, we committed to providing targeted support to local authorities to help develop their bidding and delivery capability in order to ensure that they get the appropriate funding.