Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The important thing about Cardiff Central station is that there is huge development taking place around the station. I have met the developers and local politicians, and I want to see there what I want in other parts of the rail network, which is a real integration of station development with commercial development. That should be an absolutely integral part of what is happening all around the station, not just in the station project in its own right, and that is what I want to happen.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

7. What progress has been made on improving road links to (a) Medway, (b) Kent and (c) the south-east.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

Highways England is making good progress with upgrades on the A2-M2 corridor to improve links to Medway and Kent, and the preferred routes for the A2 Bean and Ebbsfleet junction upgrades were announced in 2017.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Given the impressive growth and regeneration that Medway has seen over the past 20 years and will continue to see, I thank the Government for the £6 billion lower Thames crossing. Will the Minister confirm that the supporting local highways infrastructure programme will go along with the project so that areas such as Medway can fully benefit?

[Jesse Norman]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, the lower Thames crossing is a transformational strategic road project with enormous benefits to Medway and to the region as a whole. We announced the preferred route last year, and we are now developing it further. On the local transport side, it is worth noting that the South East local enterprise partnership has secured nearly £600 million of funding from local growth funds, supporting around 30 transport schemes in Kent and Medway, in order to support the area’s continued economic growth.