Transport: Investment

Lord Walpole Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am delighted to respond to the noble Lord’s points about low-carbon and sustainable transport. Rail schemes will be covered later, as we are not talking about CP5 issues.

The noble Lord referred to problems with the Cambridge scheme. I have just signed off a reply to a Written Question on that, so he will get an Answer shortly. I accept that there are a few problems there.

The noble Lord talked about cycling and the situation with Cycling England. He needs to remember that, as I said the other day, the bikeability scheme will continue.

[Lord Walpole]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the A11 Fiveways to Thetford improvement scheme, which will mean that Norwich—I do not know if any of you know where Norwich is—will be joined to the motorway network by dual carriageway to the south for the first time ever.

It is quite extraordinary that the A47 Blofield to North Burlingham scheme is being abandoned, according to page 1. In case the Minister does not know this, a new port has just been built at Yarmouth, so all the roll-on roll-offs will come along on the single carriageway, which will not be nice for them.

I cannot find anything in this document to do with improving the A47 or the A17, which connect Norfolk to the north, the west and the Midlands. In the yellow pages at the back, we find reference to the Norwich northern distributor road and the phrase “if it is worth it”. I can tell noble Lords, as ex-chairman of Norfolk County Council’s highways committee, that it is not worth it. It is not worth it because it was not built 25 years ago. It will be twice as long, twice as useless and will annoy twice as many people. Dear, oh dear—but at least the Government will get Norwich on the motorway.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord is pleased about the A11 Fiveways project as it connects Norwich by dual carriageway. In researching the Statement, I found place names that I had never heard of. It is a little too challenging for me to comment on specific schemes, but parliamentary tools are available to the noble Lord, should he wish to use them.