Pothole and Highway Repairs

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am extremely grateful, as always, to my hon. Friend and good neighbour for her intervention, and I feel that in Stoke-on-Trent we always come at least in a duo, and normally in a trio when my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) joins us. I could not agree with her more about the importance of the transforming cities fund to unlocking some of the potential for our city and to improving our highways. I appreciate that the Minister who is here today does not oversee this particular portfolio, but I am sure that she has taken note of my hon. Friend’s comments just now and will pass them on to others in the Department for Transport, which she works in.

Such investment really would transform Stoke-on-Trent as a city, with key interventions to improve traffic flow and to revolutionise the city’s relationship with public transport. There are too many pinch points on our road network and traffic is very heavy, particularly at “slow hour”, which is a much more apposite phrase for the city than “rush hour”—or at least it was until covid-19 suppressed traffic.

I have a number of points to make about covid-19, because it continues to weigh on all our minds, and rightly so. It has caused much uncertainty about the viability of public transport and it is in no way a positive thing. The road workers who have continued to work throughout the pandemic are heroes. They have been delivering ahead of schedule on a number of resurfacing projects, and they will stay out digging roads and filling in potholes in the weeks and months ahead. Like everyone else, they would have preferred to have been on schedule without the covid pandemic than ahead of schedule with it.

However, we have seen what is possible if traffic volumes decrease and investment capital is put in place. The transforming cities funding will help us to realise similar outcomes in much better times and help us to power up Stoke-on-Trent.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although potholes, road quality and pavement quality are primarily safety issues, they also say something about an area’s pride in itself? There are areas in Ipswich, such as Chancery, Gainsborough and Rushmere, that need this extra investment, and when the Government are thinking about such extra funding, they should take into account not only safety, which is obviously important, but also an area’s sense of pride. To build up an area, it helps to invest in such things.

[Jonathan Gullis]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely superb point. At the end of the day, improving the look and feel of an area improves the mindset and attitude of the people living in it. I look at the town of Burslem, which I represent—the mother town of Stoke-on-Trent. It has the highest number of closed high street shops of any town in the United Kingdom. I see the attitude of the local community, which has felt ignored and forgotten for decade after decade. However, knowing what potential that town has and the energy in the community to see it realised, I agree that if we improve our road surfaces and our pavements, it is not just about safety; it is about making a statement to the community that it is no longer going to be left behind.

Heavy traffic has been an exasperating problem for the city for two key reasons pertinent to this debate: first, because it causes damage to roads that were not laid to carry it, and secondly, because maintenance funding from the Department for Transport is not calculated according to traffic incidents but on road length. Research conducted by the Department for Transport in 2018 suggests that A roads under local authority control made up only 10% of road length across the country, but that that 10% carries 31% of the nation’s traffic. Minor roads made up 88% of road length, but the proportion of traffic they carry—34%—was only slightly greater than on the A roads. The remaining 35% of traffic is carried on the 3% of roads that are motorways or trunk A roads. Obviously, large rural areas with long roads and little traffic benefit disproportionately from the formula and heavily unurbanised areas with high-traffic A roads miss out.

Part of my constituency is outside the boundary of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and I certainly would not want to cut the grant received through the transport authority, which is Staffordshire County Council. However, I want to see new considerations introduced to the formula that would top up cities such as Stoke-on-Trent, which lack the mileage of minor roads that even cities such as Manchester have. As I understand it, Manchester receives twice the highway maintenance funding of Stoke-on-Trent, based on the 299 miles of extra minor roads that Manchester has within its boundaries. That means a financing differential of nearly £2 million a year.

The Minister may know that local authorities make an annual report on the condition of principal A roads and also report each year on the average volume and frequency of all its traffic. I therefore suggest that it is not unreasonable to ask that a revised or bolt-on formula should take those reports into account. That is to say, funding calculations should show due regard for road type, with principal A roads attracting a premium in some way related to their reported condition, and with traffic incidents also taken into account. There would need to be safeguarding against false reporting of road conditions and it would be useful to include a match-funding element for cities such as Stoke-on-Trent that put precious resources into roads despite a low council tax/parking surplus base. I would be grateful for the opportunity to discuss that further with the Minister.

If we can get our fair share of road funding for Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, we can carry on providing viable and well-connected sites to meet the Government’s housing targets, maximise the returns from the Ceramic Valley Enterprise Zone, boost our exports and productivity, support our growing logistics economy, enhance our city as a place to live, visit and work, and keep up the hard graft of turning around the fortunes of a city that deserves every bit of success in its current manufacturing recovery.

Outside my constituency office on Tunstall high street, old tram tracks have been revealed in road resurfacing works. The tracks have not been used for 100 years. They are a reminder of the past and also an allegory of a public transport revival yet to come. Filling our potholes and repairing our highways will not be enough for our future transport needs, but it will certainly be necessary. To conclude on this point, in order to realise both the aims of better public transport and better roads, we need input from the Department for Transport. I hope that we will see support for the transforming cities fund submission and that serious consideration will be given to a fairer formula for road funding.

Bus use has declined by a third in 10 years in the potteries, even before covid-19, and the condition of our roads and their pinch points are key contributors to the lack of reliability that has caused that decline. The transforming cities fund and a fair formula will keep Stoke on the up and help us to be even more ambitious. We can reopen the Stoke to Leek railway line via Milton, reinstate a tram network and deliver tourism gains that will help to preserve our amazing industrial heritage in the must-see, authentic potteries, the world capital of ceramics. They say that from tiny acorns great oaks grow and that if we mind the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. I say that if we keep getting the potholes filled, the transport network can run smoothly and grow.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. My Department has been in regular contact with the representatives of the coach industry, and we have been working very closely together. Officials from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport also engage with the Coach Tourism Association via the Tourism Industry Emergency Response Group. My Department has helped to put together the package for home to school transport—a £40 million package that is benefiting the sector. We have regular conversations with the Treasury, and it is clear that the £330 billion of Government support through loans and guarantees can reach parts of this sector, too.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

My Department continues to tackle the very many different challenges that covid presents to all the forms of transport discussed here this morning.

It might be worth mentioning that I visited London Bridge station earlier in the week, where a programme that involves all the Network Rail stations is being rolled out. It is using antiviral cleaning materials, which means that surfaces become protected from coronavirus for up to 30 days. It actually repeats this on a 21-day basis, and it carries out the cleaning during the night, enabling people to return to the railways with the confidence of their being covid-free.

In addition, yesterday, the first meeting of the Hammersmith bridge taskforce took place. This major artery through London has been closed for too long; it is now closed to pedestrians and cyclists as well. The Department for Transport is looking to get this resolved, and I have brought in my own engineers to do so.

[Tom Hunt]

Arguably the biggest transport issue that impacts on my constituents in Ipswich is the Orwell bridge. At the moment, the current speed limit is 60 mph, and when it closes because of high winds, the whole town grinds to a halt. The economic impact of this should not be underestimated. Highways England has a plan involving a 40 mph speed limit, which will I hope mean that the bridge can stay open even when it is very windy. However, I am slightly concerned about the timescale. Will my right hon. Friend communicate to Highways England his expectation that these new measures will be put in place before the new winter season—the windy season—when these closures will continue if we do not implement the new measures?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right that the Orwell bridge is another key artery for Ipswich. I know that it is subject to ongoing work by Highways England that requires wind tunnel validation. I have been promised that that work will be completed by the end of September. From the Dispatch Box, I send a clear message to Highways England that I expect to see it on my desk.

Covid-19: Aviation

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Of course, British Airways is a private company, but the reality for many employees and customers is that it is a national institution. Many employees have perhaps shown more loyalty to British Airways because of that than they would have shown a normal airline, and that also includes customers. There have been occasions on which I have paid more to fly with British Airways because I felt some loyalty towards it as a British citizen. Will the Minister take into account both the employees who have been most acutely affected and those of us who, as nationals and citizens, have shown loyalty to British Airways when she decides how to deal with British Airways and how it has behaved over the last couple of months?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I think I have been very clear about my position. We need to keep working to protect as many jobs as possible, and we will continue to work with the restart and recovery group to find ways to help the aviation sector to recover.