Roadworks: Cheshire

Jon Pearce Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tim Roca]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the point. Constituents mention the issue of night time works to me, but perhaps I will let the Minister comment on that in a little more detail. In Cheshire, we are really lucky to be on the fast track for devolution, which is opposed by local Conservatives. Hopefully, when we get more powers and more money from central Government, we will be able to consider such things in Cheshire ourselves.

There has been too little regard for how these roadworks are impacting the public. I have a work experience student in my constituency office from my old school in Poynton, and she says that her mum describes the traffic lights on the bridge as the “bane of her life.” Traffic routinely backs up all the way to Poynton during rush hour, impacting travel in the north of the constituency. One Poynton resident complained to me that trips to Macclesfield, usually a 10-minute drive, can sometimes take up to an hour. An employee of AstraZeneca who commutes in says that every day they see large tailbacks of traffic with frustrated motorists, and all the while nobody is seen to be working on the bridge.

Another Poynton resident who works in Macc has had to add 20 minutes on to his journey both ways. He says that the queues start from 7.30 in the morning and are not gone until 9.30, so they are not even possible to avoid with flexible working. Forty minutes a day, 200 minutes a week, equals over 10,000 minutes of him sitting in a traffic jam this year. That is 166 hours away from his family before he can relax—or, heaven forbid, go out for the evening. That is 10,000 minutes per person every day—and it is going up—until the bridge is safe and the traffic lights are removed.

Although work sometimes takes place under the bridge out of sight from passers-by, the reality is that no matter how much progress is being made and however earnest the attempts to fix the bridge, this saga has lasted a year. Very little, if anything, took place prior to January and I have had to get increasingly involved with Ringway Jacobs and the highways team at the council. All that is simply not on. Everyone involved owes the residents across Macclesfield’s communities an apology. United Utilities gives compensation to residents if they lose their gas, electricity or internet, even for short periods. Would Ringway Jacobs even be solvent if it had to pay compensation to every driver who has experienced delays?

The disruption caused by the traffic lights at Mill House Bridge pales in comparison with the horror that is the B5470. This saga started with temporary traffic lights due to the embankment structure falling away on part of the road; they were in place, causing disruption, for a few months. In January, the difficult and necessary decision was taken to close the road between Rainow and Kettleshulme after it suffered a much larger collapse of both the carriageway and the supporting embankment following heavy rainfall. The road has been fully closed since January, and I have met with the council multiple times since the closure. I have spoken to the leader and conveyed my absolute demand, on behalf of my constituents, that the road is reopened as soon as possible, because the disruption and the impact on them is profound.

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. The issue is having a huge impact on my constituency of High Peak. The closure of the B5470 in my hon. Friend’s constituency has made the morning drive for many of my constituents living in Whaley Bridge and Furness Vale a nightmare, with some estimating that it has added an hour on to their daily commute. Does my hon. Friend agree that enough is enough, and that Cheshire East council need to resolve this issue? We have been waiting for far too long and it is having a huge impact on our constituents’ lives. It is affecting jobs, and we really need a resolution sooner rather than later.

[Tim Roca]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. It is affecting my constituents and his. He has also been working tirelessly to get that road reopened; I thank him for working with me on that.

The road closure is impacting real people’s lives. The chair of governors at Kettleshulme primary school told me months ago that the June completion date was totally unacceptable. They said:

“We have families who utilise this route who will struggle with timely drop off and pick up of their children. Delivery of our curriculum is now compromised. The bus journey to Bollington for swimming lessons will take over an hour.”

As a result, the school has had to cancel swimming lessons. It has also had to cancel its parents and tots sessions, as the facilitator lives in Macclesfield and can no longer get to the school on time. It has pulled out of sporting events. Any collaboration with schools, which used to be easy to organise, now requires a minimum 40-minute trip and a whole host of planning. More seriously, the school has had to stop advertising places to families in Macclesfield because it knows that no parent will sign up for an 80-minute round trip to drop off their children, even at a really good school.

A company in Rainow has staff who cannot get to work because of bus cancellations. Not everyone has a car, or the time, to work their way around the road closure. One constituent said to me:

“To get to Macclesfield we have to make a huge detour via Bakestonedale Road to Pott Shrigley, then through Bollington to join the A523. We cannot use our bus passes to get to Macclesfield as the bus route is basically severed in two.”

Another, who has commuted to Sheffield every day for six years, said:

“This road closure is significantly extending what’s already a complex drive.”

They also noted that heavy goods vehicles are being forced on to narrow and unsuitable roads.

The diversion is not a suitable long-term plan. Bakestonedale Road is a single lane in places, with a steep and narrow track. It is really not suitable, especially in the winter months. It has already deteriorated, with huge potholes forming. Alicia—the head at Kettleshulme—hit one of those potholes recently and, having no phone signal, was forced to walk the rest of the way to school.

The diversion is also having an impact on those who live on the roads that are now seeing above-normal use. Keith Nixon, a resident on Shrigley Road, told me that as a direct result of the closure, commuters become frustrated and attempt to make up for lost time. Residents see cars travelling at well over the speed limit; he has suffered near misses twice, with vans passing within inches of him on the pavement outside his house; and of course, there are issues with noise as well.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Jon Pearce Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation. I congratulate all today’s maiden speakers, and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia). Stevenage is very lucky to have such a fine advocate. He is an impossible act to follow—perhaps I am like Kula Shaker coming on after Oasis in 1996—but I will do my best.

I assure you that I will be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. The best advice I had in prepping for this was from a good friend who said, “No matter how good a speech is, no one has ever said, ‘I wish that had been longer.’” [Hon. Members: “More!”] Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech on a Bill that is so important for my constituents in High Peak, for the country and for me personally.

When I was young, my father worked on British Rail as a storeman. The stores were vast warehouses teeming with workers in train manufacturing and maintenance. The privatisation of Britain’s railways by John Major’s Government resulted in thousands of job losses. Between 1990 and 1997, the number of rail workers in this country decreased from a quarter of a million to 130,000. Those are not just numbers; they are real lives, like those of my dad’s friends and workmates. The fear that my dad would be next, and about what that would mean for my family, was an unwelcome guest that lingered far too long in our house. Childhood experiences like that never leave you.

The dignity and opportunity of a secure, well-paid job must be the foundation on which we deliver the economic growth that High Peak and Britain need. I look forward to using my experience as an employment lawyer to help us to deliver a new deal for working people.

Were the pain and the sacrifices made by the families affected by the privatisation of our railways worth it? Did privatisation deliver the competition, the greater efficiencies and the better railway services that it promised? The commuters in Glossop, New Mills, Whaley Bridge, Chapel and Buxton will tell you with barely a dissenting voice, “No.” Frequent delays, cancellations and overcrowding have become the norm, while rail fares have increased by more than 40% in real terms, meaning that passengers in Britain face some of the highest fares in Europe. Rail privatisation means pay more, get less.

Research suggests that every pound invested in public transport generates £4 in economic benefits. Since privatisation, too many of those pounds have been going into shareholder pockets and not into improving services for passengers. In 2022-23 alone, the rolling stock companies paid out more than £400 million to their shareholders. That injustice is not fair on my constituents in High Peak, and it is holding back our economy.

High Peak should be the best place to live in the country. We have: strong communities; a rich history of tourism dating back 2,000 years to when the Romans developed the first spa around the warm water spring that still bubbles under Buxton to this day; a rich history in the arts, being home to both Vivienne Westwood and Hilary Mantel; and a rich history in delivering access to nature, being the setting for the mass trespass and Britain’s first national park, the Peak District.

High Peak is the most beautiful constituency in the country. [Interruption.] I am sensing maybe a few murmurings. I have read my brief, and I respect the importance of being accurate, so while writing this speech, I put down my pen and took a moment to gaze out of my window. With the vista of Hope valley in the foreground and the majesty of the tors beyond, I feel comfortable in reaffirming that High Peak is truly without equal.

Sadly, despite our beauty—that is High Peak’s, not my own—we are all too often overlooked. At the northernmost point of Derbyshire, not quite in Greater Manchester, and just on the edge of South Yorkshire, we have been no one’s priority for too long. No more. It is high time that High Peak got its fair share—our fair share of economic growth, our fair share of better public services and our fair share of investment. Integrated transport through Great British Railways, taking back control of our buses and building the Mottram bypass—the latter of which I commend my predecessor Robert Largan on championing—have the potential to be the catalyst, moving High Peak from the edge of everywhere to the economic centre, connecting the two core northern cities of Manchester and Sheffield. That is how we will deliver High Peak its future back, attract business investment, encourage tourism and restore pride in our towns again. That future starts where my story began, with the railways back in public ownership.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Claire Young to make her maiden speech.