Lord Swinfen
Main Page: Lord Swinfen (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Swinfen's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
The noble Lord is right to point out the benefits of having speed limits within contraflows. For safety reasons, there has been a speed reduction in the area while the contingency is in place: for the freight side the limit has been reduced to 30 miles per hour, and for the non-freight traffic travelling in the contraflow it is now 50 miles per hour. Highways England has redeployed 80 traffic officers to support Operation Brock, which will ensure that there are 30 on duty at any time. That action will ensure proper enforcement measures. We are also considering activating speed cameras and further signage.
Lord Swinfen (Con)
My Lords, is not the trouble on the M20 often caused by strikes in France, so it is not in fact our fault at all?
Baroness Sugg
Operation Brock is designed to be an improvement on Operation Stack, which we saw huge problems with in 2015. We actually used Operation Stack in mid-March; that was caused by high winds. My noble friend is right to point out that disruption can have a number of causes. That is why we have the contraflow in place: to ensure that we can deal with any disruption.