Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department takes to audit expenditure by local authorities in England from dedicated pothole funds; and if he will make an estimate of the proportion of that funding used to remove potholes.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department for Transport (DfT) allocates capital funding to local highways authorities so they can most effectively spend this funding on maintaining and improving their respective network, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities. This considers all parts of the highway network, such as bridges, cycleways, and lighting columns – and not just the fixing of potholes.
It is up to the respective highway authority how best to spend this funding to fulfil their statutory duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980. The Department strongly advocates a risk-based whole-lifecycle asset management approach to local authority highways maintenance programmes to ensure this funding is used as effectively as possible.
Funding allocations can be found on GOV.UK:
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of when the results of the Live Labs research programme, including the plastic road trial in Cumbria announced in January 2019, will be published.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) SMART Places Live Labs Programme was a two-year, £22.9m project funded by the Department for Transport that ran until the end of 2021.
The Live Labs Final Programme Review & Project Evaluations report, published in April 2022, is available on the ADEPT website.
The Cumbria Live Lab remains open beyond the end of the first Live Labs programme for further, longer-term monitoring of the plastic roads trial. There is a five-year monitoring and inspection programme in place to enable the Council to continue to feed into the overall SMART Places research programme, also run through ADEPT.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the proportion of road surfacing carried out on (a) national roads in England and (b) local roads in England which incorporates warm mix asphalt; and whether steps are being taken to increase the use of warm mix asphalt.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Warm mix asphalt is National Highways preferred choice of asphalt for all its road schemes and it is accelerating its use as standard across its supply chain as part of a drive toward net zero carbon emissions. More information can be found on National Highways’ website on Net zero highways: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/netzerohighways/.
For local roads, it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards and materials, including warm-mix asphalts, should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he expects the DVLA laboratory for urine samples to reopen; how many cases are currently outstanding at that laboratory; when he expects that backlog to be cleared; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has appointed a new laboratory to carry out these tests. There are currently 2,245 urine samples awaiting testing and arrangements have been made for these samples to be transferred to the newly appointed laboratory. The DVLA has put measures in place to prioritise the most urgent cases and expects that all the samples awaiting testing will be cleared in January 2022.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure that there is a safe, alternative pedestrian access provided between St Leonards and St Ives Parish and Ringwood during the bridge works to the A31; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
National Highways will be maintaining the pedestrian access between the Verwood Junction and West Street during construction works. The footway and the site area will be separated by fencing and boarding to ensure pedestrian safety. Any construction activities that require closure of the footway will be for short durations and, where possible, will be completed overnight and well publicised in advance.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy to temporarily extend the validity of driving licences awaiting renewal by the DVLA whilst the backlog of those applications remains outstanding; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) online services have been available throughout the pandemic and are the quickest and easiest way to renew a driving licence. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their driving licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application for a driving licence. The DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day which must be dealt with in person. Ongoing industrial action by members of the Public and Commercial Services union, leaves fewer operational staff on site to allow for social distancing in line with Welsh Government requirements and as increased demand for its services has led to delays in dealing with paper applications. The DVLA has leased an additional building to accommodate more operational staff.
The number of paper applications awaiting processing fluctuates daily as driving licences are issued and new applications received. Currently, paper applications are likely to take between six and ten weeks to process. There may be additional delays in processing more complex transactions, for example, if medical investigations are needed as part of a driving licence application. The latest information on turnaround times for paper driving licence applications can be found here.
There are no plans to temporarily extend the validity of driving licences awaiting renewal.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many applications to the DVLA for the renewal of driving licences have been awaiting processing for more than (a) one month, (b) two months and (c) three months; and what the timescale is for tackling that backlog.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) online services have been available throughout the pandemic and are the quickest and easiest way to renew a driving licence. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their driving licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application for a driving licence. The DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day which must be dealt with in person. Ongoing industrial action by members of the Public and Commercial Services union, leaves fewer operational staff on site to allow for social distancing in line with Welsh Government requirements and as increased demand for its services has led to delays in dealing with paper applications. The DVLA has leased an additional building to accommodate more operational staff.
The number of paper applications awaiting processing fluctuates daily as driving licences are issued and new applications received. Currently, paper applications are likely to take between six and ten weeks to process. There may be additional delays in processing more complex transactions, for example, if medical investigations are needed as part of a driving licence application. The latest information on turnaround times for paper driving licence applications can be found here.
There are no plans to temporarily extend the validity of driving licences awaiting renewal.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many applications for provisional driving licences the DVLA has been in possession of for more than seven days; how many of those applications the DVLA has been in possession of for more than three months; and what the timescale is for tackling that backlog.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) online services have been available throughout the pandemic and are the quickest and easiest way to renew a driving licence. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their driving licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application for a driving licence. The DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day which must be dealt with in person. Ongoing industrial action by members of the Public and Commercial Services union, leaves fewer operational staff on site to allow for social distancing in line with Welsh Government requirements and as increased demand for its services has led to delays in dealing with paper applications. The DVLA has leased an additional building to accommodate more operational staff.
The number of paper applications awaiting processing fluctuates daily as driving licences are issued and new applications received. Currently, paper applications are likely to take between six and ten weeks to process. There may be additional delays in processing more complex transactions, for example, if medical investigations are needed as part of a driving licence application. The latest information on turnaround times for paper driving licence applications can be found here.
There are no plans to temporarily extend the validity of driving licences awaiting renewal.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reasons he has not published a response to his Department's consultation on managing pavement parking, which closed in November 2020; and when he plans to publish a response to that consultation.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department received over 15,000 responses to the consultation. We are carefully considering the consultation findings and will be publishing a response when we have completed this work, which is a priority.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the risk to public health caused by people who have been fully vaccinated against covid-19 travelling together in an aircraft with high efficiency particulate air filters in use; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Vaccination greatly reduces transmission and two doses provide a very high degree of protection against serious illness and death. Air conditioning systems on modern aircraft filter cabin air every few minutes through High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters. These filters are very effective at capturing airborne microbes in the filtered air and, when coupled with the drawn in fresh air, can help to mitigate the longer-range risk of transmission.