Major Transport Infrastructure Construction

Rob Butler Excerpts

Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) and the Minister for giving me permission to contribute. This is a very important debate on a topic that affects many of my constituents, too. For the sake of brevity, I shall focus my remarks on the biggest problem that Aylesbury faces from transport infrastructure construction. It will come as a surprise to nobody that that is HS2.

Almost every community along the 5.9 miles of railway that are now being built through my constituency, from Aylesbury to Wendover, Stoke Mandeville to Dunsmore, is affected by traffic delays and long diversions, noise and dust—all of it caused by that construction project. For any area, this would be challenging and deeply frustrating for residents and local businesses, but Aylesbury is a town that has long needed major investment in its road network to alleviate the existing congestion caused by housing development—the building of literally thousands of new houses. The addition of the largest infrastructure project in Europe now means that we have almost constant gridlock and abject misery.

Since the construction of HS2 began in earnest, my constituents have been contacting me continually to voice their frustration at the impact of traffic on their daily lives. Local businesses cite how it is reducing footfall in the town centre. One hairdresser told me, for example, how appointments are frequently being missed at her salon as so many people are stuck in jams caused by HS2. Missed appointments mean lost revenue.

The problems of constructing the railway are particularly well known to residents living on the western side of Aylesbury. My constituents in Fairford Leys often describe trying to exit their estate as a nightmare, due to the traffic management systems in place on the A418 Oxford Road. Indeed, not long after I was elected to this place, I was furious to discover that HS2 Ltd closed part of that road and caused utter gridlock, then telling me, “Oh, we miscalculated the traffic flows.” Miscalculation might be an easy word to HS2 Ltd; it is considerably more disruptive to the people of Fairford Leys.

Indeed, Fairford Leys is a perfect microcosm of what dealing with HS2 Ltd can be like on the ground. The company has refused now to reopen a path there that is extremely popular with walkers, despite residents saying that there is no sign of any work actually taking place at that spot. Not surprisingly, this has caused great upset and annoyance. HS2 Ltd’s decision to fence off areas in that same location and put up surveillance cameras has led to residents now saying that they feel besieged by this white elephant that none of them wanted in the first place. Of course, I take these concerns up with HS2 Ltd directly, but they should not be happening in the first place.

Put simply, if people want to drive on a road, HS2 makes their life a misery; if they want to walk on a path, HS2 makes their life a misery. Such inconvenience and intransigence lose HS2 Ltd even what little goodwill it has ever had, and it is already in very short supply. Unfortunately, we have many more years of this to come. Therefore, like my constituency neighbour, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister, who knows the local area well, to tell HS2 Ltd to get a grip and deliver on its promise to be a good neighbour, not the neighbour from hell.