Transport Infrastructure: Essex

James Duddridge Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) on securing the debate and making an excellent case. I have great admiration for her work in chairing the Essex Business, Transport and Infrastructure Forum, which I find invaluable in bringing together stakeholders across the whole county. Although I, of course, have a parochial interest in Rochford and Southend East, like my right hon. Friend I attended the University of Essex, and follow issues in that area in great detail. No doubt we will hear more from that neck of the woods soon.

Minister, if this were legislation, I would suggest a very simple amendment: delete “A” and insert “M”. I refer, of course, to the A127. We want it to be a motorway. When I say “we”, I do not mean me, or a collection of a few random individuals; the whole of Essex wants it to be a motorway. In November 2018, a group came together—the south Essex A127 taskforce—led by Councillor Mike Steptoe, who is both of Essex County Council and deputy leader of Rochford Council. That group included Essex, Southend, Thurrock, Rochford, Basildon, Castle Point, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Malden, Havering, Transport for London and Highways England. Anyone who knows anything about transport and local politics will know that to get that number of local authority leaders and chief executives in one room agreeing anything is absolutely amazing. They want improvements to the A127.

The A127 carries more than 75,000 people every day. It is the lifeblood not only to the end of the road—almost literally where I live, in Thorpe Bay—but throughout Southend, Shoeburyness and across the corridor, into London. Rather like the c2c line, it is a pipeline of money and prosperity for the area. I am asking for just a small change—a little letter. I am sure the Minister will be able to manage something along those lines.

I have five more detailed asks. We would like the A127 widened, so that it would be at least three lanes along its length. We would like a consistent speed—at the moment, there is bit of stop/start and differential speed limits. We would like the road to be made a trunk road, part of the strategic network. At one point, the Government had a strong case against that because it just goes out to Southend, but now we have London Southend airport—an international airport that has grown massively, with more than 1 million passenger movements and flights to more than 30 destinations. From a transport perspective, that in itself makes Southend a strategic asset for the country, and on that basis alone the road should be trunked.

Fourthly, we need to make sure that all incremental improvements to the A127 do not stand in the way of a future motorway—developments such as the Fairglen interchange between the A130 and the A127 need to be motorway-proof. Finally, I am not a great negotiator, but just in case the Minister cannot offer me the small change of letter, perhaps he might go for another small change and call it the A127(M), while we wait for the full motorway in a few years’ time.