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M20 (Noise Reduction)
12.29 pm
Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling): On 12 December last year, I initiated an Adjournment debate about the problem of the ever-mounting noise on the M20 between junctions 3 and 5. I make no apology for returning to the subject six months later. I do so because we have a new Government, and whether they choose to follow or to change the policies adopted by their predecessor is a matter of profound importance to my constituents. The Minister will note that I have broadened the ambit of the debate to cover the area between junctions 2 and 5; I will explain why later.
No doubt the Minister will have familiarised herself with the background of the issues that I shall raise. As she will know, the M20 is the primary route through Kent to the continent, and, by virtue of its geographical position, the primary route from the whole of Britain to the continent. At junction 3, which is in my constituency, two branches of the national motorway system meet. The branch from the north, the M20, carries traffic from London, traffic through the Dartford tunnel and traffic from the north and east of London to the channel tunnel. The other branch, represented by the M26 spur of the M25, carries traffic from the south and west of the country to the continent.
It was inescapable that that section of the motorway would be densely used, especially after the opening of the channel tunnel. Those living along the section of theM20 between Wrotham and Aylesford--following the boundary changes, Aylesford is now in the constituency of the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford--are suffering from the noise and environmental disruption.
Inevitably, the initial projections of the volume of traffic that would be carried on that section of the M20 were substantial underestimates. The section between junctions 3 and 5 was opened to traffic in December 1971, having been built with three lanes in each direction. Less than 20 years later, in 1989, the then Secretary of State for Transport, Mr. Paul Channon, announced in his White Paper "Roads for Prosperity" that the section would be widened to four lanes in each direction. That announcement set in train what I can only describe as probably the single most botched piece of motorway planning since the start of the motorway programme.
First, the announcement was made with no indication of how the widening would be carried out and what new land would or would not be required. As a result, the homes of 2,000 or 3,000 people living near that section of the motorway were blighted, which made them either unsaleable or saleable only at sacrificial prices.
Secondly, the Department of Transport had to spend some £30 million of taxpayers' money on the purchase of some 300 houses under statutory blight procedures. It transpired, however, that the purchase of virtually all those houses had been unnecessary, as the most desirable way of widening the section involved using the existing curtilage of the motorway, and no additional land would be required. Effectively, £30 million of taxpayers' money had gone down the drain. I made a formal complaint about the waste of money to the then Comptroller and Auditor General, who strongly criticised the Department of Transport's handling of the scheme.
The final instalment of this sorry saga came just seven and a half years after the original announcement of the widening scheme. In November last year, the then Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young), announced that the scheme was to be abandoned. Quite apart from the fact that further millions of pounds that had been spent on design, consultation and planning went down the drain, the announcement was another sad example of the extraordinary mishandling of the scheme.
For my constituents, the widening arrangements had had one potentially redeeming feature. Built into them was the adoption of substantial noise abatement measures, such as noise barriers and new earth contours. Under the last Government's policy, however, because the road had been opened after 17 October 1969, the abandoning of the widening scheme meant the automatic abandoning of all the noise mitigation measures. My constituents are living alongside the main road artery between Britain and the continent, and the Highways Agency forecasts that, even without any widening, traffic on the road will at least double over the next 20 years.
Let me put two specific policy issues to the Minister. The first relates to the Government's policy on noise barriers, and the second to road surfaces. The last Government's policy on noise barriers was set out by the then Minister for Railways and Roads, John Watts, when he replied to my debate on 12 December. He said:
I tabled a parliamentary question to the Secretary of State to find out whether the present policy would continue or whether he would provide noise barriers on the M20 between junctions 3 and 5. The Minister replied:
There is an extremely compelling case for reviewing the policy. The Minister's statement that the expenditure could not be justified is strange, in that only a few months previously, until November last year, the Department of Transport found no difficulty in justifying the use of public funds for the construction of noise barriers and other noise abatement measures along that section of the motorway. I accept that that was done in the context of the widening scheme, but I do not believe that the
Minister would argue that, merely because the widening scheme has been abandoned, there will be a considerable reduction in the noise disturbance.
The Highways Agency's figures show that, even without the widening scheme, the traffic on that section of the M20 will double. There is no evidence to suggest that there will be any material diminution of the volume of traffic using it, simply because the widening will not proceed. The cut-off date of 17 October 1969 for the discretionary policy of constructing barriers on existing roads looks increasingly anachronistic. Surely policy should be determined not by some past cut-offdate, almost 30 years distant, but by the present environmental realities.
The present policy is based on the Department effectively disowning any environmental responsibility for what happens on existing roads. The Department is effectively saying that any intensification of existing use, creating increased noise and environmental disturbance, is not its responsibility and that it washes its hands of it. That position is not taken by those who operate airports in this country, and it would certainly not be allowed to be taken by companies in the private sector.
I recently had complaints about a company operating a sawmill in my constituency and I regularly get complaints about quarries. We do not allow private sector companies to say that, because they have planning consent, they can carry on intensifying use and creating more and more noise disturbance at ever-higher decibel levels for any number of hours in the day. We bring to bear on them the planning authority, public health legislation and the Health and Safety Executive. The Department cannot continue to operate a policy under which it simply walks away from the environmental consequences flowing from intensification of use of existing roads.
In the previous debate that I secured, I asked the then Minister for Railways and Roads, Mr. John Watts, whether he could consider whether the new road surfaces being tested by his Department could be applied to the section of the M20 about which I am concerned. I have deliberately extended the geographical ambit of this debate to cover the area from junctions 2 to 5, because on the section between junctions 2 and 3, heavy lorry traffic makes considerable noise as it goes past the village of Wrotham and up the steep gradient of the north downs to the top of Wrotham hill.
As recorded at column 514 on 12 December 1996, the then Minister replied relatively positively to my request for the motorway to be used for testing new road surfaces. When I tabled a question to the present Secretary of State asking him whether that section of the M20 could be used to test the quieter road surfaces being developed by the Department, the Minister replied:
"the Department is required to provide noise mitigation in circumstances where we act as a developer by building a new road or substantially altering an existing one. We are not obliged to do so to deal with noise levels resulting from increased use of an existing unaltered road. I made it clear in answer to a parliamentary question earlier today that we have, in exceptional circumstances and where funds have been available, exercised a discretionary policy for providing noise barriers on roads last improved before 17 October 1969, but that policy is not applicable in respect of this section of road, which opened to traffic in 1971."--[Official Report, 12 December 1996; Vol. 287, c. 512.]
He went on to confirm that the cut-off date was not statutory but a matter of policy, which means that if the Minister is so minded she can change it without further legislation.
"It is not possible to justify the expenditure of public funds on providing noise barriers along this section of the M20, as this would mainly be of benefit to people who either bought property in the vicinity of the M20 in full knowledge of the noise from traffic, or were compensated for the loss of value of their property when the road was first built, in anticipation of the growth of traffic on it."--[Official Report, 25 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 520.]
Will the Minister reconsider that policy, which appears to be--I hope that I am wrong--an endorsement of the previous Government's policy?
"When the M20 between junctions 3 and 5 needs attention as part of planned maintenance, the possibility of using it to test novel forms of quieter road surface developed by the industry will be considered."--[Official Report, 25 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 520.]
Will the Minister extend her consideration of using the quieter road surfaces to junctions 2 to 5, for the reasons that I have explained? Will she, either in her reply or by letter, as the matter may require some research, give me the fullest possible information about when the Department plans to carry out resurfacing on that section
of the M20? Perhaps she may say more firmly than in her written answer that the Department intends to make every possible effort to use quieter surfaces.
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