Road Investment Strategy

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

The hon. Lady, the Chairman of the Select Committee, says that this is a renewed announcement. Yes, the figure was set out last year but we are now putting the flesh on the bones in terms of what that figure will buy. I know that her Committee will want to look at the figures in more detail, but when she looks at what we are doing, she will recognise that we have struck a good balance across the whole country. She makes the point about what has happened historically regarding investment in London, but those figures are made larger by the huge investment in Crossrail. I am also keen to see investment in the rest of the country, spread across the whole of England.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the announcement of investment in the A47. Is the Secretary of State aware that that artery is vital not only to our regional economic success but to west Norfolk’s future? Now that the road has been designated a key strategic route, does he agree that today’s announcement should be a precursor to the dualling of the whole route?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I have already been accused of being over-ambitious. I am sure that my hon. Friend will repeatedly make the case for the dualling of the whole of that route, but the plans that we have outlined today will go a long way towards providing some of the shorter-term improvements for the road.

A47

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) on securing this vital debate. I will be brief; I will try to stick to the eight minutes.

The A47, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is of key strategic importance. It is the second most important road that links Norfolk to the rest of the region and the rest of the country. Now that, as colleagues have pointed out, the A11 is almost complete, it is essential that we turn our attention to the A47. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland pointed out, it is very patchy in terms of dualling. I think that less than one quarter is dualled. That makes it an inherently dangerous road. I shall touch on the overall situation on the A47 first and then consider a number of specific cases in my constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) was right to flag up safety first of all, because we are talking about people’s lives. When we have sporadic sections of dual carriageway, all the safety experts agree that when people come off those dual carriageway sections, traffic is moving that much faster and there will be more accidents; drivers will take more risks. The situation can be exacerbated by slow-moving agricultural vehicles or bad weather. I will come on to a number of unfortunate incidents in my own constituency recently, but there cannot be a single junction along the entire length of the A47 from Lowestoft through to Leicester that has not seen an appalling crash or a fatality in the past 25 or 30 years.

Then we have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland pointed out, blighted communities. We have villages that are cut in half by the A47. When my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South was a schoolboy, there was less traffic on the roads in the villages that he knew very well, and in the villages that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) referred to, there was less traffic, but we now have a very busy trunk road and villages on which there has been a serious impact. I will come on to that in a moment.

One of the very important themes of the debate is the underlying benefit of this road to the local economy. If it is improved, that will have a huge impact on the economy not just of Norfolk, but of the wider region. Norfolk is growing. In fact, unemployment in all our constituencies has come down very sharply. The average now is under 3%. In my constituency, 500 new jobs have been created in the past year. Those jobs have gone to real people who now have a brighter future.

Let us consider some of the key sectors. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney talked about the energy sector. I would add to that other sectors. Obviously, tourism has been mentioned. There is also advanced engineering, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) will talk about the IT, biotech and life sciences revolution that is benefiting Norwich. There can be a cascade impact from that revolution on other, smaller towns such as King’s Lynn, Wisbech and Dereham if we get the infrastructure that can support existing businesses and attract new businesses into the area.

I have looked at various forecasts of the additional economic benefit to Norfolk from a dualled A47. The figure goes up to more than £1 billion a year if we have an entirely dualled A47, because that will enhance existing businesses, bring in new investment, create new jobs and bring all the other benefits that come from infrastructure that can underpin what is already a fast-growing economy.

I want to talk about two specific villages in my constituency, but before doing so, I point out to the Minister that people’s hopes have been raised in the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney talked about the time when there was only one small stretch of dual carriageway in Norfolk. I think that he mentioned 1984, but in 1978 the South Lynn bypass was built and it was dual carriageway. That raised people’s hopes that we would see a significant amount of dualling along the A47. Then in 1989 we had “Roads for Prosperity”, the Paul Channon White Paper, which promised that the entire length of the A47 would be dualled over the next 10 years but in any event by the turn of the century—by the year 2000. We know that that has not happened. We have had some small improvements; we have had some significant investments—don’t get me wrong. In the intervening time, we have had the Thorney bypass. We have had the section of dualling on the A47 between King’s Lynn and Wisbech, which is highly welcome and has benefited my constituency enormously. However, there has not been a whole-route strategy or any real determination by successive Governments to get a grip of the A47 and give it the priority that it needs.

As I said, I want to talk about two villages in my constituency. On 26 March, there was a tragic triple fatality in the village of East Winch, which is east of King’s Lynn. Obviously, a police investigation is ongoing and an inquest will take place, but what happened was that a car was in a head-on collision with a lorry in the middle of the section of road going through East Winch. I do not want to speculate on what caused the accident on a day when conditions were quite good, but I know that the speed limit as people go through the village is 50 mph. It should be reduced to 40 mph. I have written to the Minister about that. A reduction in the speed limit to 40 mph would make very little difference to the flow of traffic going through the village, but it could make it that much safer for local residents, because there are a number of junctions on that stretch of road. The villagers in East Winch, day in, day out, are witnessing near misses, and we had that tragedy on 26 March. I know that we are looking at the strategy of the route, but I urge the Minister to look very urgently at that section of the road.

Unfortunately, that crash was followed a few days later by a very serious collision in Middleton, which is slightly to the west of East Winch. Mercifully, no one was killed, but it was a very serious accident on a stretch of road going through Middleton. The village is absolutely cut in half. There is the school and the village hall on one side of the road and most of the houses on the other. I am very grateful to the Department for Transport for installing a pelican crossing near Station road a couple of years ago. That has been of huge benefit to the village, but we do need to have the 40 mph limit reduced to 30 mph.

However, what we need above all else, as colleagues have said, is an overall, whole-route strategy. We want the Minister today to give us some more information about exactly where his feasibility study is going. I am certainly concerned about what we heard the other day, which was that the study is not currently planning to assess all sections of the road, so, for example, the section between Dereham and Swaffham has been omitted. We want from the Minister a firm commitment that he agrees with us that the entire length of the A47 must be dualled. We do not expect that to happen tomorrow, but we need a commitment from the Government that they will dual this road and, furthermore, that they will announce very soon a number of specific dualling schemes along the route and, in the meantime, a number of smaller schemes to enhance safety and to make the lives of our constituents that much more bearable.

I think that the case is overwhelming. The Minister will see that there is huge support, not just among MPs but among all the local authorities and other organisations. We have an incredibly strong case, and I hope that the Minister will accept it.

Cycling

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. What she said about the miracle improvements to one’s health is fascinating. A lot of money will be spent in the conurbations and in London, but does she agree that it is important that rural areas are not neglected in the great drive to get more people cycling? Does she also agree that cyclists are obviously at a big disadvantage on small rural lanes? We need more rural speed limits and more investment in safer highways in rural areas.

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend. Rural speed limits are important. In fact, the introduction of networks of 40 mph speed limits on rural roads had a great benefit in Holland. There is a lot of evidence to support their use, but this is about money. I welcome the £10 a head in the eight cities that will benefit and the spending in, for example, the Dartmoor national park in my part of the world, but that is not what the report called for. Our report called for £10 a head nationally and for us to think of the benefits—a real, lasting legacy—that that could achieve.

However, this is also about speed, as my hon. Friend pointed out. Let us look at the benefits we would see if we had 20 mph speed limits in urban areas. Too often, highways departments look at accident data before making decisions about speed limits. However, we all know that parents will not let their children cycle in the first place if they do not feel they are safe, and the perception of safety is strongly linked to the speed at which the traffic is travelling. We should look at speed limits across the board. I recently visited Falcon Park in Torbay, which is a park home development with many elderly residents who cannot walk down the road, let alone cross it, because of high-speed traffic. In any other residential area, the speed limit would have been reduced to 30 mph.

This is not only about 20 mph limits in towns and cities on a network of roads; it is about reducing speed across the board and assessing our priorities. Whom do we prioritise? Are we prioritising vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists, or are we prioritising the motorist and speed? We need to change our priorities completely to achieve that. It does not take a great deal of money to reduce speed limits—everyone recognises that there is a financial imperative—but the issue is not just reducing the speed limit, but enforcing it. We heard shocking evidence in our inquiry about a level of complacency towards enforcement. What discussions have taken place across Departments to ensure that welcome changes in the issuing of fixed penalty notices for careless driving will be extended to penalising people who breach speed limits directly? It is immediate consequences that will drive change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bellingham]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about Holland. Indeed, I have holidayed there many times, too. Local councils there are very much aware of the need to ensure that new schemes are cycle-friendly. Is he aware that in some areas, including mine, there are problems with community infrastructure funding schemes? These can result in very safe school cycling routes being converted into a dedicated bus route, with no alternative cycle route being put in place. Does he agree that when these community infrastructure funding schemes are put in place, alternative like-for-like cycle-friendly arrangements should be made?

[Simon Danczuk]

That is an excellent point, and it leads on to my next one. I have been cycling in the United Kingdom, primarily in Rochdale, for just six months now, and I have encountered many good examples of provision for cycling. The Rochdale canal, for example, has a great cycling path, but even that can be seen to be falling into disrepair. The work was done some years ago and needs re-doing. Kingsway business park, a new development, caters very well for cyclists, but not all new schemes have cycling provision designed into them. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the need for that to happen.

A47 (Upgrading and Dualling)

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The A47 is a strategic route of national and regional importance to the East Anglian and the Norfolk economies. I am delighted to have an opportunity to raise the subject in the House, and to encourage and thank the Minister for his support for the work of all the Norfolk Members and others in the region; highlight the importance of the proposed works to our local economy and the national economy; and seek further reassurance from the Minister on some of the points on which he reassured me when we met before Christmas.

Let me first thank the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Transport for their encouragement. Last summer we went to see the Minister’s predecessor as roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who told us that historically the road had not been supported by the regional development agency and that we had our work cut out to make the case. The Government’s approach now is to invite local parties to set out a clear business plan for roads, and to make the case that Government investment will be more than matched by significant co-investment along the route.

I am delighted to say that the county council, New Anglia—the local enterprise partnership—and all the local Members of Parliament and business organisations came together to produce a report that set out exactly what the Government had asked for: a business plan for the route entitled “A47—Gateway to Growth”. I am delighted that that document was so well received by the Government, and grateful to the Minister and his officials for their support for it.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I am delighted that he has supported the Minister, who has taken a great interest in the issue. We in west Norfolk were delighted by the Minister’s recent announcement that we would indeed be given the Middleton crossing for which we had been pushing for a long time. Does my hon. Friend agree that the A47 really does need more dualling to ensure that Norfolk fulfils its full potential? He may be aware that the White Paper “Roads for Prosperity”—published in 1988, before he was born—recommended that the entire road should be dualled. After all those years, we really must make more progress.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful and important point, to which I am sure the Minister will want to respond.

I have initiated this debate in order to highlight the key strategic importance of this route to our economy, to raise its profile nationally and to build the momentum of the important campaign and the work that is taking place locally. The road is of key strategic importance to our region and our nation, but it is also a dangerous route for those who use and cross it. I believe, and I know that the other local Members believe, that it could act as a catalyst, enabling East Anglia to become a genuine centre for innovation and enterprise focused on the greater Norwich economy. I hope that the Minister will provide further reassurance this evening that the Government will make the route a priority in the next round of funding, will look kindly on my request for pinch-point funds, and will view sympathetically my concern about some of the bottlenecks that need particularly urgent attention because they have the greatest potential to unlock growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which serves to remind me that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who could not be present tonight and who is also muted by virtue of being on the Front Bench, has asked me to pass on this comment:

“The A47 is an important road for Norwich businesses and households. I support the campaign for its improvement because it will bring more jobs to the city and around the county.”

Norfolk has waited for infrastructure improvements for a long time, and now, like the No. 11 bus, many have come at once: the A11 is being dualled; there is substantial investment in our rail network as a result of our putting together our Anglian rail prospectus; and the Government are funding fast broadband. All of that comes not before time, because our county is ready to rise and meet the challenge of a rebalanced economy. With the necessary infrastructure in place, we will be able to do so.

The A47 is now the most pressing and urgent infrastructure issue in our county. It is the blocked artery that runs across it from east to west, linking our economy to the midlands and allowing goods to be moved in and out. We have major ports of international significance on our east coast, and in and around Great Yarmouth there is an increasingly significant energy cluster. It is lamentable that this road was not prioritised by the RDA, and many of us may wonder why on earth not.

My personal interest is obvious. The A47 runs right through the middle of my Mid Norfolk constituency and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) has highlighted, its intermittent dualling presents great dangers to all its users and to those in the rural economy who seek not to use the A47, but to cross it, whether on bicycle, horse or tractor. I know from my own experiences of cycling the route before the last election just how dangerous it is. At this point I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who recently drove the route in a union flag-bedecked Mini from east to west to highlight its importance.

My other interest in this issue is as the Government’s adviser on life sciences. I have talked before in this Chamber about the potential of the Norwich research park, an increasingly globally recognised centre of science and research in three of the most exciting global markets: food, medicine and energy. Its companies pioneer some of the most exciting science in the country, such as the blight-resistant potato and the Lotus car I recently saw that is fuelled by biofuels created from agricultural waste.

Norwich is a centre of life sciences, but it sits out deep in the last county not to be connected properly to the national trunk road system, and with no non-stop links through to the rail network. It is a county that desperately needs infrastructure if it is to be allowed to play its part in the Government’s mission to rebalance our economy.

The truth is that this is a trans-European route of economic significance that has been neglected for far too long. The lack of connectivity and poor development are holding back the whole Norfolk economy. With investment in our infrastructure, we can spread growth around and reduce the amount that we in government have to spend on welfare and on tackling the problems of social and economic exclusion that flow from poor infrastructure.

The opportunity is significant. As the business plan makes clear, with a programme of targeted improvements we can transform the 105 miles of the A47 into a truly strategic national and international link, linking our region to central and northern Europe and to the midlands and the north of England, and linking our regional clusters—Cambridge, Norwich, Yarmouth and Ipswich—of innovation and science and new business growth. As the business plan makes clear, over the 20 years for which it sets out the programme of work, we have the potential to generate 10,000 jobs, to increase the economic output of our county by £390 million a year, to attract private investment worth more than £800 million, to recruit an extra 500 investment-related jobs and to cut journey times by 30 minutes, delivering savings of £42 million to road users. These are significant numbers, and they are not, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know, plucked out of the air but put together by professional consultants and officials at the county council and the LEP who constructed the business case. Of course, these works will also dramatically improve safety for users and for those crossing the route.

Importantly, the document sets out a series of regional benefits across the route. In King’s Lynn, in the west, where the focus is on regeneration, the plan envisages 750 new jobs, £15 million of private investment and 400 new dwellings.

[Mr Bellingham]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning King’s Lynn. Obviously, Norwich has the most phenomenal potential and is going to move forward, and King’s Lynn wants to do the same. If King’s Lynn is connected to Norwich by an improved A47, it will really be a part of that economic regeneration. That is why this is so important not just for links to the rest of the country, but within Norfolk itself.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is a passionate and effective advocate for King’s Lynn and that area, and he has done extraordinary work in putting it on the map, both through rail and now through road. He makes an excellent point: by connecting these centres, we not only improve the national economy but help to tackle problems of exclusion and deprivation locally.

The business plan makes clear the economic benefits in Norwich: 5,000 jobs, £240 million in additional private investment and an extra 2,500 dwellings. For Great Yarmouth—represented admirably by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, who has to sit silent on the Front Bench and listen to me describe the benefits in his own constituency—the figures are 3,865 jobs, £227 million in private investment, and 200 dwellings.

It is not least for that reason that the business plan has had such support from the local business community. Richard Marks, managing director of John Lewis in Norwich, said:

“Norwich is growing its reputation as a retail destination…we support the proposals which will help improve communication across the county”.

Matthew Jones, chief operating officer of Norwich research park, said:

“The NRP fully supports the plans for improving the A47 which are essential to achieving the huge potential of the park to drive economic growth and development of the greater Norwich area”.

Phil Gadd, contracts director at Norwich airport, said:

“The world can fly to Norwich. However, it cannot access the region. We need to improve the A47”

as a strategic gateway. The chairman of the Mid Norfolk branch of the Federation of Small Businesses said:

“I regularly use the A47, if I could just save 15 minutes every day and everyone else using the A47 could do the same, that equates to thousands of hours every year.”