A11 (Dualling)

Simon Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on securing a debate on an issue that I know he campaigned on long before he was elected. Like so many of us, he raised the matter in his maiden speech—indeed, he managed to lobby me on the issue before either of us had been sworn in as an MP. I also pay tribute to the work of my neighbour the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who is sadly unable to address us. I know she cares passionately about the issue because of the benefits that dealing with it will bring to the people of Norwich.

It is important to recognise the challenges posed to the local economy by lack of infrastructure in and leading into Norfolk. The county’s economic position within the east of England and the greater south-east region is not typical of those areas. Business birth rates in Norfolk are less than 9%, which compares poorly with a rate of more than 11% across the east of England, and prospects appear to be worsening relative to the wider region, with the number of business births in Norfolk down by 17.5% since 2007. That figure compares poorly with a drop of around 5% across the wider east of England.

In 2004, there were 3,690 new businesses in Norfolk; in 2006, that figure fell dramatically to 3,195; in 2008, it fell dramatically again to just 2,765. Norfolk is slipping further behind, and the gap is widening. In the past, East Anglia has generated a high number of start-ups, some of which have gone on to achieve huge success, such as Bernard Matthews and his turkeys. The drop in start-ups in a county that has traditionally relied economically on large numbers of small business operations is worrying. A key reason for that decline is the lack of infrastructure within a sparsely populated county, which puts it at a competitive disadvantage.

Yet Norfolk can contribute so much. There is huge untapped potential in Norwich and across Norfolk waiting to be unleashed by the completion of the dualling of the route. My constituency is at the end point of the A11, and it is appropriate that its starting point was originally the Bank of England, because Norwich businesses will need a fast, direct route to the banks for the enormous proceeds that dualling the road will generate. Norfolk has the potential to be at the cutting edge of green technology, science and research, but that depends on improving our infrastructure. Offshore energy, engineering, financial and business services and creative and media industries are among the areas in which Norfolk could be a world leader, but to develop them we must overcome the shortcomings in our transport system. It is enormously frustrating that a whole county’s development has been held back by a series of delays to a final decision on upgrading the A11.

Norfolk’s transport infrastructure has been under-invested in for decades. The need to dual the A11 was first raised nearly 40 years ago by Edward Heath in 1971. In 1984, the Eastern Daily Press threw its weight behind the campaign, as have dozens of Norfolk MPs over the intervening years, and yet we are still waiting in 2010. It is perhaps because of that long-term under-investment that the economic case for dualling the A11 is so compelling. Norwich is the largest UK city that is not connected to the dual carriageway and motorway network, and making that connection is one of the few low-hanging fruits, ripe and easily picked, that would result in enormous benefits. For Ministers looking for cost-effective ways of delivering economic benefits through infrastructure investment, the A11 is surely at, or near, the top of the list.

Norfolk is geographically isolated and sparsely populated, which provides challenges for economic development, and the poor quality of the county’s road network and its lack of connectedness make those challenges much harder for businesses to overcome.

[Matthew Hancock]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that not only do businesses in Norfolk lose out as a result of that bottleneck, but many businesses at the other end in Suffolk, which would dearly love to work with the great businesses he has mentioned and the great scientists other Members have mentioned, lose out because the bottleneck splits those two areas?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Wright]

I certainly agree with that point and thank the hon. Gentleman for making it. The benefits would be not just for Norfolk, but for all the other areas where greater interconnectedness would provide new business opportunities.

The other major roads leading into Norwich and Norfolk from outside the county are single carriageway for significant and extended stretches, which places an even larger strategic value on the A11. Getting Norwich and Norfolk better connected to the wider region is a vital step towards overcoming our geographical constraints and the competitive disadvantage that businesses in the region face. The journey time savings that would result from dualling the final stretch of the A11 are estimated at around seven minutes during peak times, but they could be considerably greater. Lack of capacity on the road regularly leads to delays of up to 20 minutes or more, or considerably longer during peak holiday seasons. Those who witness the A11 at the start and end of bank holiday weekends witness a seemingly never-ending convoy of caravans going nowhere, which is surely a deterrent to return holiday visits to the county, and it unfairly reinforces the stereotype of Norfolk as a remote and peripheral region.

A £600 million benefit to Norfolk’s economy is waiting to be realised from the dualling of the A11, providing significant value for money at a time when public spending needs careful scrutiny for economic impact, as so many hon. Members have said in the debate. The Atkins report identified time savings worth £558 million and a further £136 million of wider economic benefits, including agglomeration benefits. Much of those agglomeration economies will be driven by productivity increases in Norwich. Businesses in my constituency and research institutions in and adjacent to Norwich are particularly likely to see the positive impacts of increased clustering. The region will see the economic benefit of improved connections between two key centres of growth: Norwich and Cambridge.

[Ben Gummer]

May I mention a third sector of growth, in addition to those in Ipswich that I have mentioned? My hon. Friend might be interested to know that Martlesham has the largest area of software development in Europe, and because of the poverty of the A140 as a road, the quickest way to get there is via the A14 and A11, so getting the third part of the triangle is important for his constituents and mine.

[Simon Wright]

I certainly take that point on board. There is enormous expertise and world-class research in Ipswich, as well as the existing business opportunities. There is a real opportunity for all centres across the region to benefit from the clustering effect.

Businesses are being deterred from investing in Norfolk because of the A11’s current inadequacies. Tackling the bottlenecks on the route will provide a huge confidence boost to businesses in Norfolk and outside that are looking to generate new investment and employment opportunities in Norwich and Norfolk. Norwich is one of the UK’s top 10 shopping destinations, but despite that some major retailers have held back from investing there because of the threat of hold-ups to deliveries on the A11.

The completion of the dualling of the A11 was identified as the No. 1 priority for Shaping Norfolk’s Future, the private sector-led economic development partnership. Its petition attracted 16,000 signatures and all-party support from the county’s MPs. Norfolk chamber of commerce, alongside Shaping Norfolk’s Future and more than 100 business leaders from Norfolk and Suffolk, submitted a joint letter of support for that proposed scheme. The consensus is strongly in favour of the scheme and the strength of feeling is high.

In conclusion, the reason there is such huge support for the scheme is that the case is so compelling. It will bring major economic benefits to Norwich, Norfolk and well beyond, at a time when capital investment projects need to demonstrate strong justification. I am confident, as I hope the Minister is after hearing our submissions, that the evidence in favour of the scheme proceeding is compelling. I strongly urge Ministers to reach a conclusion on it as quickly as possible so that Norwich and Norfolk can look forward with optimism and confidence to future economic development.