Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this. As I have said, a huge amount of investment is being made available to Highways England. I visited the site with my hon. Friend earlier this year, and it would open up a large area of potential development, which is very important for his constituency.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Over the summer, roads to the channel ports ground to a halt, lorry drivers who were stuck in their cabs needed emergency water to drink, and local businesses were hit as Kent villages near the motorway network were cut off. The Chancellor’s announcement of a new lorry park may be a step in the right direction, but it will not keep the traffic moving of itself and it falls well short of highways management road improvement works that local partners tell me are needed if Kent is going to be protected from similar snarl-ups in future. Does the Secretary of State consider his lorry park “job done”? If not, what else is he going to do before, rather than after, the people of the south-east go through the same thing again?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I do not regard it as “job done” but I regard it as a great step in the right direction to find that level of resources available to solve what was an unacceptable situation for people in Kent last summer. It is definitely a step in the right direction, but I will obviously keep every other option under review.