Cycling: Lincolnshire

Victoria Atkins Excerpts
Wednesday 12th October 2016

(8 years, 2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Stephen Phillips Portrait Stephen Phillips
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I am extraordinarily grateful to my hon. Friend, not only for his constructive response but for his assurances on my specific queries. I am immensely pleased to hear those assurances, as, I am sure, are my hon. Friends the Members for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) and for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). I know from discussions with the latter that she knows the importance of cycling in her constituency, not only for the reasons covered in the debate but also in relation to regeneration.

Victoria Atkins Portrait Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
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I thank my hon. and learned Friend for securing this important debate. He will know that the Louth canal was, in its heyday, the powerhouse of the midlands engine—even bigger than Grimsby’s port, in its time. Does he welcome, as I do, the work of East Lindsey District Council, the Louth Navigation Trust and Sustrans to reopen the route along the canal for cycling, walking and other joyous pursuits?

Stephen Phillips Portrait Stephen Phillips
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Yes, of course I agree with my hon. Friend fully about that. I am looking forward to cycling the route and, indeed, dragging her along with me, when it opens in due course. I am afraid that the price of being permitted to make her point in the debate will be that she will have to join me.

We have had an extraordinarily useful debate. Those who read it in Hansard will be left in no doubt about the beauty of Lincolnshire, and the fact that it may be the best county in the United Kingdom in which to engage in cycling pursuits. I can promise those who come that not only will they get a good bike ride; they will get fabulous lunches in some of the wonderful pubs and other places of Sleaford and North Hykeham—and, I am sure, Boston and Skegness and Louth and Horncastle. I am grateful to the Minister and to everyone who contributed to the debate.

Question put and agreed to.