Road Routes to the South-West

James Heappey Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

In fairness, I think that the Government gave a great deal of money for potholes, and the county councils, particularly Devon County Council, worked very hard on the problem. We have to deal with potholes because they cause accidents and damage cars. It is essential that we get that work done but, in fairness to the Government, they did give something like £8 million to Devon to solve the problem of potholes.

I am dealing with Highways England regarding the A35. We are looking for a solution to slow the traffic and make the Hunters Lodge junction safer—we must deal with that. Upgrading the whole corridor of the A303, A30 and A358 would create 21,400 jobs and boost the local economy by some £41.06 billion—a key delivery for the long-term economic plan for the south-west. Other benefits would include £1.9 billion of transport benefits due to reduced journey times and greater resilience.

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the long-term economic plan for the south-west, with which the Minister will be familiar. It was delivered 13 months ago, almost to the day, and he very clearly pledged £7.2 billion for wider transport improvements in the south-west, £3 billion of which was for roads. I hope my hon. Friend would agree that today would be a good time to hear an update on how the spending of that £3 billion is going.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. We are keen to hear from the Minister exactly how the spending is going and when we are likely to see diggers arriving to construct the roads, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) said earlier. We look forward to that answer.

Additionally, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) reminded me, the A30 is a stretch of road that runs past Exeter airport and that by no means constitutes low noise. He is particularly keen for the concrete motorway to be quietened—I suspect he tried that when the Minister came down the A30. It is definitely dualled, of which I am jealous, but there is an argument about the noise caused by the road. The village of Clyst in the East Devon constituency is hit by the double whammy of noise from the airport and from the roads.

Furthermore, the A30 is the main carriageway for motorists travelling westwards towards the Exeter and East Devon growth point, which is also in the East Devon constituency. The growth point, as my right hon. Friend pointed out to me, includes the brand-new and fast-growing town of Cranbrook, the science park, the business park, Skypark and, as mentioned previously, Exeter airport. The Minister was in Cranbrook just last week for the opening of a new train station, and he will have seen at first hand that improvements to the A30 would be a big boost to the growth point and therefore the wider economic area. The only way to achieve those figures is to upgrade the whole A303/A30—I may possibly have mentioned that before. That second arterial route into the west country would create a natural flow of traffic, as much of the London traffic would be dealt with, thereby creating the sensible and logical division of traffic that we need.

I ask the Minister for assurances that all those projects will be given the go-ahead. Please show the same confidence in the south-west that all of us here today share and recognise. We have been given a brilliant opportunity to develop as part of the long-term economic plan not just for the west country but for the whole country. Will he encourage Highways England to work with Devon County Council on the design of the roads through Honiton and Monkton, all the way through the Blackdown hills to Ilminster? Devon County Council has done a lot of work on that. Finally, we say to the Chancellor: please may we have these funds? They have been promised, and we look forward to seeing them.

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[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

It is appropriate that a fellow south-west MP should be in the Chair for this important debate, Mr Gray.

Given the time available, I will move quickly to my shopping list for the Minister, but not without first saying that the unveiling of the long-term economic plan for the south-west last year was an important moment in the election campaign, because it clearly demonstrated that a Conservative Government would have the south-west at the heart of their thinking and would recognise that investment in south-west infrastructure had for too long lagged behind other parts of the country. Since the election, we have had an opportunity to debate at some length the problems with our broadband in the region, and the other night we had an excellent debate led by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on the area’s rail infrastructure. Today’s debate on roads is similarly important.

I will briefly focus on two areas, the first being our region’s strategic connections. The M5 is closed too often. Traffic gets south of Bristol and is too often met with a traffic jam that closes the road, which has an impact on the visitor economy not just in Somerset but in Devon and Cornwall. On a Friday evening, many restaurants and campsites are left without their Friday evening’s revenue because people are still stuck in and around Avonmouth on the M5. The A303 and the A358 are clearly important improvements for us to make to take some pressure off the M4-M5 interchange. Those improvements must be made as quickly as possible, but with them must come a traffic management system that goes all the way back to the eastern end of the M4 so that people are advised to take the A303 and A358, if that route is the clearest, when trying to access the south-west. We must also make more effort to connect our road network with our rail and air transport hubs. At the moment, too many of our railway stations and airports are too far removed from decent roads, which also stands in the way of economic development.

My one entirely parochial plea, having spoken about the importance of the A303 and the A358—that is without doubt the most important improvement we must make to our region—is that, locally, there is a challenge in accessing the northern part of Somerset. There is an east-west connection on the M4 corridor. The next proper east-west trunk road is the A303 and the A358 in their current state; there is nothing in between, unless we accept the Bristol southern ring road, but that really serves Bristol’s suburbs, not the county of Somerset, north Somerset or north-east Somerset.

Although my hon. Friends the Members for Bath (Ben Howlett) and for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) are both encouraging improved access off the M4 beyond Bath and down into west Wiltshire and Somerset, we are also looking at improvements from junction 23 of the M5 along the A39 and the A361 to open up eastern Somerset and west Wiltshire from the M5 corridor, too. I plant that in the Minister’s mind, as I will be coming to speak to him about it in due course. It would make a significant difference to access for that part of Somerset, which at the moment runs the risk of becoming a rock in the stream as everything moves around it very quickly on the A303 or the M4/M5. That does no service to my constituency, where there are huge opportunities for a relatively small number of very short road improvements—probably an extra five miles of road. With that, I cede the floor so that others can put their shopping lists on the record, too.

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[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this debate and indeed all the hon. Members who have contributed to it. They have demonstrated the widespread concern that exists about the need for improved road infrastructure in the south-west. That concern has existed for decades, including concern about a second route through from London to sort out the issue of the route through from the M5, and so on.

[James Heappey]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has heard enough today to be impressed by the need for improvements to the road network in the south-west. Does he agree, therefore, that the commitment to abandon the A358 improvements that was made in the Labour party manifesto last April was deeply misguided, and will he reassure us that his party has already abandoned that commitment?

[Richard Burden]

I will come on to some of the history around this issue in a little while, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman can just be a little patient on that point.

I will just offer apologies for my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). I heard his name come up before. He takes his duties as a member of the Health Committee very seriously and it is meeting at this moment.

The A303 has occupied a lot of the discussion today. Clearly, it is a road that has tested the ability of successive Governments to deliver the kind of objectives that we have been talking about. I think that there was broad support for the road investment strategy that was announced in 2014. However, what I am concerned about and what I would like to press the Minister on today is that despite the Government’s commitment of £2 billion for seven road schemes in the south-west up to 2021, I am not sure that the numbers add up and I am not sure that the start dates are anything other than aspirational.

What we know is that when the previous Labour Government left office, the Highways Agency had a costed and timetabled plan to improve the A303 and to dual the A358 from Ilminster to Taunton, to remove the need to create a new dual carriageway through the Blackdown hills. What we also know is that after 2010 there was a rowing back on capital investment that was worth around £4 billion in total. So when we hear now about this £2 billion coming back in to fund some of these projects, it is important that we interrogate the Government about it a little bit.

According to the pages for the seven schemes on the Highways England website, only five of them have estimated costs and, if I have added up the figures for them correctly, their combined total comes to £2.15 billion. That is already more than £150 million over the £2 billion budget without the other two schemes being considered, and before scope creep and other inflationary pressures are considered.

In March 2015, the Government produced their “feasibility study” of solutions for an alternative road route to the south-west. However, I wonder what it all means, because it is about two years ago—in this very hall, actually—that I pressed the Minister’s predecessor to ensure that that study would lead to progress, but the future seems to be about as clear as mud at the moment.

The status quo pleases no one and it is necessary that we find a solution to the A303 and to Stonehenge. As far as I can see, however, the bottom end of the current cost estimates already seems to double the £410 million estimate that led Labour to review the costs back in 2005. So, can the Minister confirm when he expects a costed and timetabled set of options for the road? In the meantime, has he asked Highways England to evaluate short-term and medium-term options to improve traffic flow and alleviate congestion? Also, can he satisfy concerns that the current front-runner—a 2.9 km tunnel—would protect the integrity of the archaeological site, as required by article 4 of the world heritage convention? And in the event that the Government cannot satisfy the objective of providing a fully costed and timetabled proposal by 2017, what would he do? Would he consider, for instance, handing this work over to the National Infrastructure Commission to consider?