M6: Junction 38
Debate between Deirdre Costigan and Tim Farron(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Tim Farron
The hon. Gentleman is a world-standard crowbar applier in this place, but that was not a crowbar—that was very relevant. England’s connectivity with Ireland via Stranraer is utterly affected by what is happening at junction 38. He is absolutely on the money, and I am very grateful for his point.
We must avoid the closures of these junctions. Let us start with one group who are mentioned regularly and helped rarely: at a time when they are already facing so many threats and pressures, the closures will be a logistical nightmare for our farmers, who will face rising fuel costs, some land being made inaccessible to them, and threats to animal welfare as they have to make more arduous journeys throughout this three-year period.
Secondly, given the Government’s priority of seeking economic growth, the junction closures are also a huge risk to our multibillion-pound tourism economy. Tailbacks north and south and the junction closures will mean that some of the 20 million visitors we have each year will vote with their feet, putting many of the 60,000 hospitality and tourism jobs in our county at risk, and further damaging the UK’s fiscal position.
Local businesses will be hit by the closures, including—I do not think this is parochial hyperbole either—Britain’s finest service station, Westmorland services at Tebay—
Tim Farron
Thank you. There will be an estimated cost to the service station alone of £1 million in damage if the junction is closed. Dozens of other businesses will also be affected, with millions of pounds of lost revenue, increased costs and the potential loss of hundreds of jobs.
As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, there will be a huge national impact on the haulage industry. Most lorry companies use junction 38 as their halfway point on the route to Scotland and the ferry ports serving Ireland. With the closure this coming January of the M6 at Clifton—at the top end of my constituency near junction 40—heavy goods vehicle drivers coming from Scotland and the ports connecting us to Ireland will be diverted from Penrith, across the A66 to Scotch Corner, down the A1(M), and across the M62 to rejoin the M6 near Warrington. That is a colossal detour, with horrendous costs in fuel and journey times—and that is only for a few weekends at the beginning of next year. The Lune gorge plan is to run for four to six years, not a few weekends. The work will have an enormous negative economic impact for the whole country. The consequences have clearly not been fully thought through.
Given that we know some of the impacts of the closures, we have asked National Highways for sight of its impact assessment. To my utter astonishment, it has not conducted one. The Minister can blame previous Conservative Ministers for that failure if he wishes, but he only gets to do that if he puts it right immediately this evening. Where is the economic impact assessment? Where is a credible traffic management plan?
With help from local residents, businesses and farmer groups, we did our own survey of the impact and calculated that the damage just to that relatively small section of the local community who live in the villages closest to junction 38 would be upwards of £10 million over three years. The real impact would be much wider, of course, and therefore the cost would be much, much higher.
The closure of junction 38 would also mean greater pressures on junction 37 to the south and junction 39 to the north, both of which are dangerous hammerhead junctions. Junction 37 has seen three tragic fatalities and many other accidents in the last 18 months alone, yet National Highways’ current plan—such as it is—is to send tens of thousands of vehicles down to junction 37, or up to the similarly designed junction 39. Those junctions are to be used as crude roundabouts by extremely heavy vehicles in utterly unreasonable volumes. Again, this underlines the failure to conduct a meaningful impact assessment or present any kind of credible traffic management plan.
The crucial problem that I want the Minister to focus on is the closure of junction 38 southbound for 18 months and then northbound for 18 months. It is completely unacceptable. Let’s face it—National Highways would have never even considered it in a more urban part of the network. I reiterate that we are not against the works taking place. We know that the bridges need to be replaced, but there are clearly alternatives to lengthy closures of junction 38, yet those alternatives have not been seriously considered or properly investigated.
I have a high regard for so many of the people I work with from National Highways, but from the beginning of this project there has been a failure to consider the community and the Cumbrian economy. Now that National Highways is being called to account and asked serious questions, it seems as though excuses are being made rather than solutions being explored.
Local businesses commissioned the well-respected motorway highways consultants BWB, which produced a detailed feasibility study confirming that temporary slip roads are absolutely possible—indeed, they are straightforward if the order of bridge removals is slightly rearranged. National Highways rejected this proposal with, at best, a cursory assessment, and it has provided no credible reasons for doing so.
On behalf of my communities in Westmorland, my first ask is that the Minister looks at the proposals himself, takes independent expert advice from his officials, and at the same time instructs National Highways to properly, formally consider the temporary slip roads—to make certain that these very credible plans are properly evaluated. Meanwhile, as the works proceed, many full motorway closures are planned, and the apparent plan is to route the entire M6 load through the narrow streets of Kendal and Kirkby Stephen. This is ludicrous and unsustainable, and it will take ministerial intervention to put right.
The second ask therefore relates to the Kendal relief road, otherwise known as the northern access route. In 2023 the previous Government pledged £460 million for 21 “smaller road schemes” across the north, including potentially a short new road linking the A591 Windermere Road to the A6 Shap Road just north of our thriving but often congested main town of Kendal, but in July the Department for Transport announced that the scheme’s future had been placed under review, with a final decision set to be announced by the end of the year. Given the disruption from the M6 closures already this year, the case for that road is stronger than ever. Can that project be brought forward so that it can be done before the M6 Lune gorge project happens?
The third ask is for help to be provided to solve the congestion that M6 and A66 closures have on the beautiful town of Kirkby Stephen. The provision of new, additional off-road parking for residents on South Road in Kirkby Stephen, along with sensible highways modifications, would mostly solve the problems there too. Will the Minister please instruct his officials to take action on that point before the work on the Lune gorge bridges causes repeated chaos to the town?
Fourthly, earlier this year the Government gave the green light for the A66 dualling after our lengthy campaign, and I am grateful to them for that. The plan includes an underpass close to the M6 junction 40 underneath the notoriously busy Kemplay Bank roundabout at Penrith. It is vital that the work is sequenced before the M6 closures so as to avoid crippling congestion around Penrith and to alleviate the devastating impact of running those projects at the same time. The solutions are here—experts have done the work and local businesses have provided the evidence—yet National Highways has not meaningfully considered the very options that would prevent economic and social disaster for our communities.
My final ask of the Minister tonight is this: will he meet me, along with representatives of the local community, local businesses and their skilled highways consultants, to discuss the temporary slip road proposals and the wider sequencing of these works? If he can visit the Westmorland site in person, we would welcome that hugely, and that would help him to see at first hand the issues that our local communities are facing. But time is of the essence, so we will gladly meet him in London if that can happen more speedily. It is essential that he understands for himself the profound and unnecessary impact that the project will have on Kendal, Burneside, Grayrigg, Tebay, Orton, Ravenstonedale and Kirkby Stephen, and on the wider economy of the Lake district, the dales, Cumbria as a whole and the UK’s haulage industry. The M6 bridge work must be done to keep us safe for generations to come, but it is wrong for it to be done in ways that ignore the catastrophic impact on our residents, communities and businesses in Westmorland.