Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of building Westerly slip road access to the M42 from J1 of the M42.

There are no plans to introduce westbound access to the M42 at Junction 1 owing to the close proximity of the Junction to the M5 Catshill interchange, half a mile to the west. National Highways has determined that due to the significant amount of weaving and lane changing already required to access Catshill Interchange, adding a new merge at this location off Junction 1 would introduce a considerable and unacceptable level of safety risk to road users.