Transport Links: Nottinghamshire

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered improving transport links in Nottinghamshire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I thank colleagues who have come to speak in today’s debate.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this issue. I am glad to see Members from neighbouring constituencies in Nottinghamshire here for this important discussion, which is perhaps taking place at a helpful time, given that tomorrow we will see a new man in No. 10. There may be an opportunity to make the case afresh for better transport infrastructure in the regions of the United Kingdom and to rebalance our economy.

I will open with the comments and suggestions passed to me by my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) and for Newark (Robert Jenrick). Because of their Government positions they are unable to speak in debates such as this, but they have been involved in discussions about the issues that I will raise. I plan to cover railways, road junctions, congestion and other issues that all require Government support and funding, as well as various other issues to add to the great list for the Department for Transport to deal with.

Mansfield is the largest town in Nottinghamshire. It requires improved transport links to neighbouring areas if it is to flourish and we are to boost the local economy. Many people see Mansfield as a commuter town for Nottingham or Sheffield, but we do not have suitable transport links to make that possible.

I start by discussing the extension of the Robin Hood line as part of the East Midlands franchise. I am pleased that the new franchise holder will have to make a business case for extending the line; that is a big step forward after a long campaign. Local lines need to be upgraded and extended, rather than there just being a focus on big national projects. Regardless of the value for money argument, I fully recognise the potential positive impact of HS2 on Nottinghamshire, particularly if we can link up the north of the county with the hub at Chesterfield, as well as the city and suburbs with Toton. Without the east-to-west connections, which we discussed in a debate here just a few weeks ago, we will not make the most of the economic potential of HS2.

If the Robin Hood line were extended to Ollerton, with trains calling at Shirebrook, Warsop and Edwinstowe, there would be huge economic benefits locally. Extending it would mean improved links for my constituents to jobs and tourism across north Nottinghamshire. The ability to attract new employers to old pit sites at Thoresby and Welbeck comes from efficient access to major motorways and railway services. In the longer term, it would end just short of the HS2 hub at Chesterfield and potentially offer huge growth and jobs to all north Nottinghamshire.

While I am talking about rail, I will take the opportunity to highlight the Midlands rail hub to the Minister. It is championed by Midlands Connect, who I met just this afternoon. The Midlands rail hub is a £2 billion package of smaller improvements that would lead to more passenger and freight trains across the midlands in key areas. It works in a collaborative way with Network Rail, which is unusual and pleasing to see. It needs just £25 million to continue to drive that forward and make the proper business case. I hope the Government will support that as we go forward. The Robin Hood line is the most significant railway project that would help improve links for my constituents.

When it comes to roads and junctions, I am afraid I have many more asks of Government. We all know that many towns across Nottinghamshire, and elsewhere, are gridlocked by a huge growth in housing and traffic, on roads that simply were not meant to take it. There are pinch points that cause chaos. One example is the A60 Sainsbury’s junction in Mansfield, where at key times people can sit for literally hours queuing to get out of the retail park. Residents have complained for years about that congestion.

I have been working with Nottinghamshire County Council for over a year to get plans and costings in place to improve that junction. Final proposals have been submitted to the Department for its views. I hope Ministers will look favourably on them when they are submitted to the new funding scheme that I understand opened this weekend. Hopefully, the Minister will touch on that in his closing remarks. A relatively small amount of funding would have a huge impact on that area. There are many bottle necks like it—far away and abstract from Westminster, but important for the local areas that they affect. This particular one is set to get worse if we do not deal with it and do something effective in the short term, with the building of some 2,000 homes nearby.

With new housing developments being built around Mansfield, Warsop and across Nottinghamshire, improving transport infrastructure and links between areas has never been so important. Last month I visited the site of proposed developments at Spion Kop, which lies to the north of Mansfield before Worsop. It was good to see the proposals, including infrastructure and new facilities, but unless there is support there for congestion on the A60, which is already an incredibly busy road, it is going to cause problems.

There needs to be an overall collaborative approach, working with Highways England and Government to deliver improved transport infrastructure. The congestion on the A60 is a very similar challenge to that of Newark, which I will touch on shortly on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark. Solutions have been put forward to that Newark congestion and the Mansfield challenge is a similar one.

There are economic opportunities from road investment in the region, including the A617, which is known as the Mansfield and Ashfield regeneration route, or the MARR. It has grown steadily to accommodate new housing, and it could expand further to support new jobs and provide a route for the increasingly heavy traffic around Mansfield. We would benefit hugely from dualling the rest of the MARR, particularly in light of the positive announcement of 1,800 new jobs to be created there at Summit Park commercial site. We can unlock more of that economic potential with improved transport links. There is an opportunity to divert some traffic around the town rather than plough through the middle of it. That would also help reduce to reduce air pollution in the town.

I want to take a bit of a whistle-stop tour around some nearby issues. They are not in my constituency but this debate is about Nottinghamshire transport links and I want to touch on a wider range. I am pleased that Nottinghamshire County Council has been working to unlock the economic potential of the A614, upgrading that route and reducing congestion at Ollerton and other junctions on the route. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood has been campaigning on that for a long time. The Department for Transport announced last October that £18 million of funding would be allocated to the council for those improvements, which cover six junctions along the A614 and A6097 between Ollerton and Lowdham. The scheme aims to support planned housing developments along the route.

In Newark, serious accidents on the A1 and the A46 can cause frequent delays. The interchanges there, including with the A17, are particularly busy at peak times, which has a knock-on effect on the town and the Cattle Market roundabout, especially when the Nottingham to Lincoln train crosses and everything gets stopped, sometimes for prolonged periods. The A46 Newark northern bypass project will see the widening of that route and the creation of a dual carriageway, raising the last section of the A46 between the A1 and M1 to expressway standard. That will make a huge difference to the town and, more broadly, to north Nottinghamshire. Again, it is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Newark has campaigned about for many years, to improve the network and reduce congestion in the town.

The county council has been working on several important improvements, including the introduction of CCTV at 12 sets of traffic signals on the A38 in Ashfield to enable traffic to be actively managed in real time. That is Mansfield’s key route to the M1 as well, and can be a bit of a nightmare. Junction 27 is also an issue. One of the features of Mansfield as a town is that, although we are close geographically to the M1, it can sometimes be a struggle to get there, particularly for commuters. I would like to see more funding and support for projects that can review things such as traffic light phasing and tackle localised gridlock.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point about the wider road network. He will know that, inexplicably—it was unexplained at the time—a previous Labour Government detrunked many roads in Nottinghamshire, where I was a county councillor, and in Lincolnshire, where I am an MP. It is critical that the roads that remain trunked—Highways England roads—interface with the roads for which our county councils are responsible in as efficient and effective a way as possible. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling on the Government, the Department for Transport, to ensure that that connection is central to their plans?

[Ben Bradley]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the key challenges, as I mentioned, in getting from Mansfield to the M1 is precisely how the M1 and the junctions there interface with the A38 and those access routes. Bringing together people such as Midlands Connect, which oversees the regional infrastructure, with those proposals in the future will be vital to make sure those things fit together and we can get the best possible efficiency from our local transport system.

As I mentioned, we have new commercial building at the Summit business park and we need to look to make further improvements on the A38. The area around Kings Mill is already struggling and additional traffic could, if not managed properly, cause problems. As my right hon. Friend said, the need for forward planning and collaborative working around such areas is important.

Unlocking the economic potential of not just Mansfield but all of north Nottinghamshire would be of huge benefit and can be done with some fairly simple solutions sometimes, but it requires that forward planning.

I wanted to mention bus services. I have had complaints from constituents about the early finish of bus routes in the Mansfield area. Staff working late shifts—or even after 6 pm, in many cases—are unable to use buses to get home again. Those living in Forest Town, Oak Tree, Bellamy or Rainworth—areas outside the main rail route—cannot use trains as an alternative, so I would like to see more frequent and later bus services in those areas. I hope the council will work with my constituents to deliver.

The council spends £3.6 million to financially support more than 60 contracts on bus routes across Nottinghamshire. Many support services operate on fixed routes at peak times, to get people to work, education and doctors’ surgeries, but we also need to look at other issues, such as social integration, isolation and ensuring that people can get to work at other times.

I was pleased to see that two new routes have been created in Hucknall, to serve new developments. The C1 and C2 Connect services will go across Harrier Park, near Rolls-Royce, and the Vaughan Estate. From Sunday, those buses will join the existing routes to create better local infrastructure in Hucknall, to serve the train station that connects to Nottingham and the east midlands train services. That is a good example of public transport connecting up with good planning and offering residents a good local service. Funding for those routes has been supported by developers of new housing schemes, which shows the importance of those funding arrangements and creating the transport infrastructure to support new developments. I hope the residents will use those services and it will be viable to increase them in the coming years.

To sum up, Mansfield is well situated to act as a commuter hub for Nottinghamshire and Sheffield. We have relatively affordable housing, some great small businesses and a historic town centre, which I hope will receive funding from the future high streets fund and the stronger towns fund. I have been pleased to see Mansfield’s bid to the future high streets fund taken forward. That is positive news. We could develop locally as a commuter hub, bringing in affluent young professionals who want to get on the housing ladder and enjoy the benefits of having Sherwood forest on their doorstep. With the right infrastructure and support, Mansfield could offer an incredible lifestyle.

We have huge potential to make the most of tourism. The Robin Hood line could connect us closer to Sherwood forest. We are making good progress, with new hotels being built. Improving the road and rail network will encourage more visitors, which will in turn boost our local economy and support our brilliant local shops. We are, after all, at the heart of the old Sherwood forest, with countless attractions scattered across the county.

It is important to aid the economic growth of post-industrial towns more broadly across the UK, to reverse the trend of aspirational young people feeling that they have to leave our towns. I want people who finish school in Mansfield to see the great potential of living and working in such a beautiful part of the world, and improving transport links is an important factor in their future decisions.

Increased funding to improve transport links across Nottinghamshire is a key requirement to drive that change. I hope that the potential for a focus on regional infrastructure will come good under a new Prime Minister. It is unfortunate that this debate coincides with the new Conservative party leader’s speech to the 1922 Committee, which I am sure has distracted many colleagues this afternoon.

I thank all my constituents for their engagement on this debate. Many commented on my Facebook post this week, when I asked them to raise their key transport issues. From the responses, it was clear how important these issues are to people in Mansfield and how incredibly frustrating they find some of the issues that I have raised. I hope that the Government will focus on the benefits of improving transport in our towns and across Nottinghamshire. I look forward to hearing the views of colleagues from other parts of the county about their priorities.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I thank the hon. Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and, of course, the shadow Minister for their contributions. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) and for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who, as I said in my speech, cannot contribute to this debate because of their roles, but who have had many a conversation with me in the build-up to this debate about their own priorities, which I mentioned in my speech.

I welcome the discussion about consensus from Opposition Members. It is absolutely correct that every time we debate and discuss these issues—in the House or locally—we all broadly agree, across the parties in Nottinghamshire, on the key priorities that we need to deliver, and agree that Nottinghamshire needs the fair slice of national investment that I hope we will see.

I thank the Minister for his response, especially his comments about initial improvements that we will see on the Robin Hood line, in terms of the quality of the trains and the regularity of service under the new franchise. I also thank him for his comments on the pinch-point funding for congestion. I can assure him that his Department will be receiving the bid for the A60 at Sainsbury’s as soon as humanly possible, to try to get that over the line. I am sure he will not be surprised to know that I will continue pushing not only that cause but many other Mansfield and Nottinghamshire-related transport issues. I look forward to the Government’s support for the foreseeable future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered improving transport links in Nottinghamshire.