Transport in the South-East

Caroline Voaden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

It is almost as though the hon. Gentleman has read my speech in advance. I will go on to a lot of the things he has just raised. If it is bad today in my constituency, it is hard to imagine how much worse it is on a sunny day, when tourists for the Witterings queue for miles to reach our lovely sandy beach or Goodwood hosts an event that attracts visitors in their thousands.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

My hon. Friend talks about coastal roads. The A379, a glorious coastal road in my constituency, had already been damaged by storms in January, but last night huge chunks of it were literally washed into the sea. It is absolutely devastating, and I was shocked to be told by officials at the Department for Transport this morning that there is no national emergency fund for repairs to roads damaged by storms. Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we see more intense and frequent storms caused by climate change, the Government need to ensure that they have funding ready to support communities like those around Torcross in South Devon that have been devastated by this damage?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend has shown me the photos of what has happened in her constituency, and I share her distress that a main road—an A road—has literally fallen into the sea. Our constituencies share the fact that we are low-lying coastal plains at the forefront of climate change. As we see more storm events, we are seeing the damage in our communities.

That brings me on to paying particular tribute to my residents living on the Manhood peninsula, who get completely trapped in the summer months because of congestion on the roads and are unable to get out of the area. Today, they are trapped because all the roads in and out of the Manhood are completely flooded. Georgia, a constituent of mine, left her job as a nurse because her commute was taking two hours, with one hour spent travelling just the handful of miles from Emsworth to Tangmere. Chris’s son has school transport, and has to leave an hour before school starts due to the traffic on the A259 on to the A27; again, he is only travelling a small number of miles.

Melanie is planning on packing up her successful mental health business because the gridlock is, perhaps ironically, negatively affecting her mental health. Shaun owns a funeral company, and he told me of the time he had to get out of the hearse to physically clear the traffic to get to the local crematorium on time. Daniel owns a home carers company, and he regularly reports that staff get stuck on the A27, which means that the people they care for in the community miss medicine times and hospital appointments, and the backlog means that people get seen later and later in the day.

I am in no doubt that the congestion on the A27 is strangling the city and putting off investment from businesses. It is stopping people shopping in the city or business parks and is impacting people’s daily lives. The A27 Chichester improvement scheme has a long history dating back to the 2000 south coast multi-modal study. Following several iterations, the scheme was included in the 2013 “Investing in Britain’s Future” White Paper and the 2014 road investment strategy. The scheme went to consultation in 2016, when 93% of respondents to a National Highways survey said that congestion was a problem on the A27.

However, in 2017 the Secretary of State removed the funding for any improvements along the Chichester stretch. There remains significant anger and frustration among residents that they were never given the opportunity to vote on a preferred model of road improvements, especially as the Chichester district has seen more than its fair share of house building over the past decade. If the Government expect areas such as ours to continue to sustain such an increased level of development, residents need to see the investment in infrastructure too. Instead, it seems that their local services, be it GPs, schools, roads or buses, are expected to manage the additional capacity with no extra resource.