Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps he has taken to reduce congestion (a) in Windsor constituency and (b) around Heathrow Airport.

Transport investment is central to the Government's long term economic plan. On 7^th July we announced £3 billion of funding for new local transport schemes within the Local Growth Fund. This included £96.9 million for the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (which includes Windsor). Of this, £94.6 million will support transport schemes that have been bid for by the LEP and will make a real difference to transport accessibility in the whole of the Thames Valley. These include provisional funding from 2016/17 onwards of £4.75 million for a sustainable transport package across the Thames Valley LEP area.

Local transport in the Windsor and Maidenhead area has, since 2010, also benefited from investment that will reduce congestion in the area. This includes just over £2 million of Local Pinch Point Funding, £16.1million investment in improving the state of the roads and on small scale transport schemes and around £2 million from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund to ease congestion by promoting travel behaviour change through a package of sustainable travel measures aimed at residents, schools and businesses.

In addition to investment in the local network the Government continues to progress the M4 smart motorway. A further formal public consultation on the scheme will be held in the autumn and subject to development consent and the final business case, construction could start in late Summer 2016. As well as this the Highways Agency is taking forward a £2.5 million scheme to improve the links between the M4 and A329(M), to provide increased capacity at the junction and improve traffic flows. The scheme will be delivered by the end of March 2015.

The Government is also investing around £500 million in Western Rail Access to Heathrow subject to a satisfactory business case and agreement of acceptable terms with the Heathrow aviation industry. This will facilitate direct rail services between destinations in the Thames Valley and Heathrow airport.