Road Infrastructure

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing this debate on today of all days. Who would have thought it?

I shall not detain hon. Members for too long. No doubt they will show no surprise at all that I will spend three minutes unashamedly banging on about the North Devon link road. In the extraordinarily unlikely circumstance that anyone here does not understand the vital importance of the North Devon link road, let me give Members the 20-second lesson. It is the A361 between Tiverton and Barnstaple and onwards to the beautiful North Devon coastline. It links our part of the world with the M5 and the rest of the country. However, we do not see it as North Devon’s only link to the outside world; we see it as the outside world’s only opportunity to visit us.

We therefore need real investment in the North Devon link road. We must ensure that it is fit for purpose. At the moment, it is not. It is single carriageway for about 85% of the distance between Tiverton and Barnstaple—two towns some 30 miles apart. Where it is not single carriageway, it has short stretches of overtaking lanes that merge quickly into the main carriageway with little warning. That leads to risk taking, speeding, dangerous overtaking and, sadly, a high incidence of accidents in which people are killed or seriously injured. Sadly, two summers ago, three people were killed on the link road just a mile or so from my home in North Devon.

We need to change that, but not just because we need holidaymakers to be able to get to North Devon more quickly in August. We need real investment in the North Devon link road because it currently hampers economic investment in our area, which has so much to offer as far as a growing economy is concerned.

We have made real progress. Devon County Council is doing absolutely fantastic work, and we have secured £1.5 million from the Government to carry out detailed planning work, including putting together a comprehensive business case. We are currently in the third phase of a public consultation, with a series of exhibitions—I was at one in South Molton myself less than a fortnight ago—that show what could be done to improve the road. We have a plan. We are, to use the awful phrase, shovel ready. We now need the money. I am not the first and I am sure I will not be the last to say to this Minister—this excellent Minister, this wise Minister, this almost noble Minister, whom it is a pleasure to see here—“Please look at this scheme, because you will get so much bang for your buck if you invest in it.”

Normally, people would not find a cigarette paper—perhaps these days we should say an e-cigarette paper—between me and my good friend the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, but it rather suits our purposes in North Devon that it seems that the new £1 billion roads fund announced today will be targeted at roads that were de-trunked and are purely the responsibility of local authorities. That is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves in North Devon. Why? Because a Labour Government chose to de-trunk the A361. That happened under a Labour Government’s watch and, I have to say, under the watch of a Liberal Democrat MP in North Devon. [Interruption.] Absolutely. That should not have happened, but it did happen, and it hampered investment in this road. I am however pleased to say that, if The Times is to believed—of course it is; it is The Times—we can see the way out of this and, through the new fund being announced today, we can get some real investment in the North Devon link road.

Let me look wider across the south-west, because it is no good people being able to get to North Devon if they cannot get beyond there to the rest of the south-west. Last week, I was delighted to see media reports of a new £6.1 billion programme to open up road access to the south-west. In particular and for so long, many colleagues in the south-west have been asking for a proper dual carriageway linking the M3 with the M5. Too many bits of the A303 and A358 are single carriageway and not fit for purpose. The Government have announced real investment, which will see a major change in that, and I warmly welcome it.

I say to the Roads Minister that we will be knocking on his door. The Government have invested £1.5 million in ensuring that we are shovel ready for this vital scheme to improve the North Devon link road. The message that needs to go out today is, “Come to North Devon. Come and do business in North Devon. Come and spend your tourist pound in North Devon, and come and live in North Devon and contribute to the local economy.” I want to be able to say, “You can do all those things and get there safely, sustainably and efficiently, thanks to investment by this Conservative Government.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]