Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 January 2023 to Question 113160 on Large Goods Vehicles: Dorset, whether it is the policy of Highways England to retain the lorry park at Brocks Pine; and what representations have been received by Highways England on retaining the lorry park.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
National Highways (which has replaced Highways England) has no role in the operation of the facility, and it is not a NH site or on NH land.
National Highways has not called for the closure or relocation of the ‘lorry park’ facility within Avon Heath Country Park.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he expects Highways England will give a substantive response as a statutory consultee to the planning application submitted by WHWhite Limited to Dorset Council in November 2021 for a surf lagoon on land adjacent to the A31 at St Leonards; and for what reason the response has been delayed.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
National Highways has been working with the applicant and their transport consultants for some time to resolve questions with this development. National Highways requested further information on 8 December 2022, which is still outstanding, as well as clarification of a number of other points.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data his Department holds on the number of lorries that used the lorry park at Brocks Pine off the A31 at St Leonards, Dorset, in each of the last 12 months for which information is available; and whether Highways England have been requested to close or relocate that facility.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The government does not regularly collect this information. As part of the National Survey of Lorry Parking, published in September 2022, the utilisation level for Brocks Pine, A31, Ringwood, Hampshire was at 50% (8 HGVs and a total capacity of 16). This is a one-off snapshot (one Thursday night in March 2022) taken from the overnight audits completed. No further information is held.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many applications have been made to the rapid charging fund; how much of that fund has been allocated; and whether he is taking steps to distribute that fund by December 2023.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Rapid Charging Fund (RCF) is not yet open. The timing and process for the delivery of this funding is currently being planned and will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 November to Question 90730, if he will (a) publish and (b) place in the Library a copy of all responses by highway authorities to Question 5 in the last 12 months.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
Most local authorities the Department allocates funding to as part of the highways maintenance incentive element funding process are in Band 3, based on their self-assessment response. Funding for authorities in receipt of City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) no longer receive a separate incentive element and so are not included in the table.
The Department encourages all authorities that receive capital grant funding for highways maintenance to continually monitor those processes advised within the questionnaire to ensure best practice in highways maintenance continues to be carried out.
A breakdown of responses from the self-assessment in February 2022, from local highway authorities in England eligible for the highways maintenance incentive element, can be found in the table below:
Local Authority | Question 5: Is your local authority undertaking lifecycle planning as part of its highway infrastructure asset management? |
Bedford | Band 3 |
Blackburn with Darwen | Band 3 |
Blackpool | Band 3 |
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | Band 2 |
Bracknell Forest | Band 2 |
Brighton and Hove | Band 2 |
Buckinghamshire | Band 3 |
Central Bedfordshire | Band 3 |
Cheshire East | Band 3 |
Cheshire West and Chester | Band 3 |
Cornwall | Band 3 |
County Durham | Band 3 |
Cumbria | Band 2 |
Derby | Band 3 |
Derbyshire | Band 3 |
Devon | Band 3 |
Dorset | Band 2 |
East Riding of Yorkshire | Band 3 |
East Sussex | Band 3 |
Essex | Band 3 |
Gateshead | Band 3 |
Gloucestershire | Band 3 |
Hampshire | Band 3 |
Herefordshire, County of | Band 3 |
Hertfordshire | Band 3 |
Kent | Band 3 |
Kingston Upon Hull, City of | Band 3 |
Lancashire | Band 3 |
Leicester | Band 3 |
Leicestershire | Band 2 |
Lincolnshire | Band 3 |
Medway | Band 3 |
Milton Keynes | Band 3 |
Newcastle upon Tyne | Band 3 |
Norfolk | Band 3 |
North East Lincolnshire | Band 2 |
North Lincolnshire | Band 3 |
North Northamptonshire | Band 3 |
North Somerset | Band 3 |
North Tyneside | Band 3 |
North Yorkshire | Band 3 |
Northumberland | Band 3 |
Nottingham | Band 3 |
Nottinghamshire | Band 3 |
Oxfordshire | Band 3 |
Plymouth | Band 2 |
Portsmouth | Band 3 |
Reading | Band 3 |
Rutland | Band 3 |
Shropshire | Band 3 |
Slough | Band 2 |
Somerset | Band 2 |
South Tyneside | Band 3 |
Southampton | Band 3 |
Southend-on-Sea | Band 3 |
Staffordshire | Band 3 |
Stoke-on-Trent | Band 3 |
Suffolk | Band 3 |
Sunderland | Band 3 |
Surrey | Band 3 |
Swindon | Band 3 |
Telford and Wrekin | Band 3 |
Thurrock | Band 3 |
Torbay | Band 3 |
Warrington | Band 3 |
Warwickshire | Band 3 |
West Berkshire | Band 3 |
West Northamptonshire | Band 3 |
West Sussex | Band 2 |
Wiltshire | Band 3 |
Windsor and Maidenhead | Band 2 |
Wokingham | Band 2 |
Worcestershire | Band 3 |
York | Band 3 |
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 2 November 2022 to Question 73788 on Roads: Repairs and Maintenance, which highway authorities in England do not adopt a risk-based whole-life asset management approach to their highways maintenance programme; and if he will make it his policy that funds awarded for highway maintenance are conditional upon the adoption of such an approach.
Answered by Richard Holden - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The Department for Transport (DfT) allocates to local highways authorities is through a formula based on road length, number of bridges and number of streetlights.
£125 million (11%) of the highways maintenance funding is allocated via an incentive-based element conditional on local authority self-assessment of their highways maintenance practices. Question 5 specifically interrogates the extent to which each respondent is undertaking lifecycle planning as part of its highway infrastructure asset management.
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 - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
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.