A120 Dualling

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The A120 has long been in my heart as something needing improvement since well before I became involved in local or national politics.

Driving from my constituency—where we have wonderful beaches; it is a great tourist venue—and going westbound, as my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) said, it becomes completely blocked up at the section between Marks Tey and what we call cholesterol corner. I am sorry that I have to iterate that. Going from my constituency along the A120 has been a regular commute of mine. It sort of peters out beyond Bishop’s Stortford, where it goes back to being a two-way road, and then it peters out altogether in the middle of the countryside. The section between Stansted and Harwich is an absolute nightmare and has been for years.

We are now celebrating the decision on a preferred route, in which the A120 will be dualled between Braintree and Marks Tey—or south of Kelvedon, I should say. That is not ideal for me, but it is light years ahead of what we have to put up with now. I commend the application for RIS2 funding for this and I hope the Minister will take it further. It also should not be forgotten, as my hon. Friend mentioned, that the A120 is trans-European network route. It is a curious thing—all the major cities are supposed to be linked, east to west, from Moscow to Dublin. This section of the A120 is part of that, and it is a two-way road. It is nonsense. This is a major step towards realising that ambition.

I take this opportunity to call for further work, further down the line, to complete the A120 in an area that does not go through my constituency but that affects it hugely. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) knows all about it. It was built in the ’70s and it is now crumbling and beginning to fall apart. It needs a renewal, so why not get the whole thing done, from Harwich all the way to Stansted, and finish the job?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that part of the A120—from Horsley Cross to Parkeston— which is vital for the economy of north Essex and is crumbling, as he says. However, I believe the Government should be able to say something this afternoon about the Highways Agency activity on that bit of the road and the resources that will be committed to it in the short term, if not the long term.

[Giles Watling]

My hon. Friend is right. I am delighted to hear that the Government can say something about that section, because it is still holding us up. Cars can still bowl along it at about 55 mph most of the time, but it is still a single lane on either side. It takes forever.

I look forward to our delivering a new, world-beating infrastructure across Britain, east to west, which we need now more than ever. We have not had that over the years. The A14 was improved many years ago, and it is about time the A120 was brought into line, so let us get that infrastructure in place. While I am standing here, I might as well mention that we ought to improve the railways in our area, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I fully understand the scheme; I have read it in much detail. That is why I am making the case that it is so important that we give people real choice.

In my closing remarks—

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Lady give way very briefly?

[Rachael Maskell]

Very briefly, then.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. Will she just give an assurance that the Labour party supports the dualling of the A120 all the way from Colchester to Parkeston, which is a stretch of road that is long overdue for dualling?

[Rachael Maskell]

I think I have made myself perfectly clear in today’s debate, with all due respect. What I have said is that we believe that we should have a fully integrated, intermodal approach to transportation, which, as I have—