Road Routes to the South-West
Debate between Kevin Foster and Neil Parish(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Neil Parish
I could not agree more. Doing the figures, we reckon that these infrastructure improvements could deliver about £40 billion to the west country, so we are talking about very big money. There are also a great number of visitors coming to see us, and we want to ensure that they can get there by rail, by road and even on their bicycles if they want to. We want them to come to the west country. There are many hon. Members present from Cornwall. To get to Cornwall, people need to travel through Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire, so that is key.
The west country is definitely a honeypot as far as tourism is concerned. If the A303/A30 through to Honiton and Exeter is dualled virtually all the way, most of the London traffic will come that way. Then there is the north and the northern powerhouse that the Chancellor is so keen to have and that I very much support. When people from the northern powerhouse and the midlands come down, they will naturally come down the M5 and into the west country from that direction. What I am talking about is a natural way of keeping that traffic going and keeping it separated. I go back to the point I made earlier. Let us say that we take all the traffic on to the M5 and there is a problem after Wellington. A caravan may tip over going down the hill, which is not an unforeseen happening. With what I am talking about, we will not only be able to get traffic on to the motorway. If there is a blockage on the motorway, then with the A358 dualled, we will get a lot more traffic back up the A358, going into Honiton. That is where I believe we need to do the second route in and have it dualled all the way through and upgraded through the Blackdown hills.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) will make a case for upgrading the north Devon link road, and I very much support that. I am not here to destroy other people’s ambitions; we want to ensure that we have as much investment for the west country as we possibly can.
I agree with the Chancellor—the architect of our long-term economic plan. As he rightly says, the south-west has not enjoyed as much attention as the north of England, but that does not excuse any neglect of the south-west. I agree that his long-term economic plan for the south-west is good, but we want to see the colour of his money. In particular, I believe that transforming connections between the south-west and the rest of the country is the right thing to do, as well as improving connections within the south-west. From Somerset to Devon to Dorset, these infrastructure upgrades are essential.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s comments. Does he agree that the Kingskerswell bypass, which has just opened and connects my constituency to the rest of the road network by dual carriageway for the first time, is a perfect example of the benefits that can be delivered by investment in our infrastructure, with thousands of jobs and new homes predicted to be generated just by that investment?
Neil Parish
I could not agree more. The Kingskerswell bypass brings people into Torbay. It brings them from the A380, and if they go back on that road, they have the A380, the A38 and the A30 when they get to Exeter, so they have a choice of roads. It is ideal to keep the A303 going from Ilminster through to Honiton to ensure that they can make that connection, so I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend.
Rural Broadband
Debate between Kevin Foster and Neil Parish(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Neil Parish
Occasionally, on a good day. To be serious, the people who have broadband are very happy and we do not hear much from them; the issue is the people who do not. I repeat that the more we talk about all those who have it, the more it drives on those who do not.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise that those of us who represent coastal communities face a real barrier to the delivery of infrastructure, better known as the sea, which rules out some of the options he has talked about. I welcome the Minister’s announcement in a previous debate that Torbay would have 100% coverage, but sometimes in an urban area it is the site that most needs to be covered—a business park or a development park—that is left out, even though nearby housing has been covered.
Neil Parish
My hon. Friend raises a good point. That is part of the trouble and is hard to understand. When someone knows that people right next to them have a good connection but they themselves have not it seems a huge anomaly. BT has so much fibre-optic cable that where it is rolling out the contract it tries to deliver broadband with that cable, but sometimes it simply will not work. I do not think that BT is necessarily deploying the other technologies that we need as fast as it should be.