Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jesse Norman and Antony Higginbotham

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

T7. Junction 11 of the M65 currently only allows traffic to join going eastwards towards Colne, where the motorway ends, and not westwards towards the M6, opening up the whole country. The result is a majorly congested Burnley town centre and a limit to economic opportunity. Could my right hon. Friend set out what funding opportunities are available for a viability study into a westwards slip road?

[Jesse Norman]

In 2021, we asked National Highways to undertake a study looking at possible interventions on or around the M65 at Colne. That study focused on localised congestion pinch points on that road, which is owned and managed by Lancashire County Council. It concluded in 2022, and the findings were handed over to the council and Transport for the North. It is for them to decide what further action they may wish to take as a result, but I know they will, and they certainly should, attend closely to what my hon. Friend said.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jesse Norman and Antony Higginbotham

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

T3. For disabled people, access to public transport is often the difference between having a job and not, between socialising and not, and between living independently and not. In my constituency, in Burnley and Padiham, a brilliant young man called Joe Skinner has made it his mission to improve disabled access on buses, whose current design does not take account of modern wheelchair sizes. So may I ask my right hon. Friend when disabled access requirements were last reviewed, whether he would come to Burnley to meet Joe and talk about this, and whether he would praise Joe for the work he does, not just for disabled people in Burnley, but for people right across the country?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that; he has been a great champion of this cause. I absolutely join him in praising Joe Skinner. Let me also praise Cameron Wood in my constituency, who has been equally hard-working in pressing the case for the improvement of disabled access. I know that my hon. Friend has already met the buses Minister, whom I know is keen to get up to Burnley—I would be very supportive of that.