Road Investment Strategy

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. No doubt he has made representations to Philip Atkins, the leader of Staffordshire county council, because those are local highway authority roads. I will join him in making those strong representations. I agree with him that Tamworth is an excellent place to invest.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I warmly thank my right hon. Friend for visiting the missing link on the A417. He therefore knows what an important economic link it is from the M4 to the M5. Will he put a bit more flesh on the bones than he did in his answers to my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) and for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson)? Is it his intention to solve this problem? We have had feasibility studies for years. When does he expect work to start?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am not sure that I can add much to the last two answers I gave on that point. There is a desire to find a solution, but it is not the easiest area to deal with. I have made a commitment to start work on it during the RIS programme so that a solution can be found in the longer term to this serious bottleneck.