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Sir Michael Spicer: The Minister just said the system of traffic control worked well. By what criteria does she judge whether a traffic system works well? Clearly, if all the traffic has come to a stop in part of a big city, and part of that is caused by the traffic light system, it is not working well.
Ms Jackson: The hon. Gentleman is confusing two issues here. Traffic jams are not occasioned by poor signalling or a system of signalling. They are often caused because there are far too many cars on roads that were not built to accommodate them. That is why the Government intend to introduce an integrated transport strategy, whereby there will be alternatives to what is seen to be an over-dependence on the private car. I do not think that we would automatically reduce traffic jams by making major changes to signalling systems that meet the needs of a wide range of road users. As I say, the primary consideration must be safety.
Although we wish to make improvements to the efficiency and flexibility of traffic control, they must not be at the expense of safety, especially for the more vulnerable groups of road users. We should, of course, always be open to new ideas, and should look at what others do to see if we can learn from them, but it is important that we are careful to evaluate proposed changes to see that they do not compromise our objectives.
In the case of turning left through red traffic lights, we have looked at the proposal, but have concluded that the disbenefits to pedestrians, to blind and partially-sighted pedestrians especially, more than outweigh any gains that might be achieved for vehicles.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin):
Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot address the House again.
12.46 pm
Mr. Alan Hurst (Braintree): I am grateful for the opportunity to address the House on this proposed road. Before I proceed, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on her appointment. I say that not out of sycophancy but because she was good enough to visit my constituency before 1 May and before it obtained most-favoured status.
I imagine that most hon. Members are familiar with the A12. It is the trunk road that runs from the Southend arterial A127 in south Essex north-east through Essex and thence to East Anglia. It is a major carrier of vehicles and has traditionally so been. It has obviously changed over the years. Elderly folk in my constituency are proud to show me photographs showing their grandparents playing in the street that was then the A12. If anyone did that now, they would not last more than 15 seconds.
The original A12 meandered through the towns and villages of Essex, in particular Hatfield Peverel, Witham and Kelvedon, which are on the section with which I am concerned. That was the position until the early 1960s, when improvements began to be made. Even at that time, the road was heavily congested. One can remember as a child being taken for outings to the east coast and being stuck in Hatfield Peverel, Witham or Kelvedon or one or another of the villages along the road.
From the 1960s onwards, dual carriageways were constructed. The section to which I have referred was affected by two bypasses in 1965. When the Hatfield Peverel and Witham dual carriageway bypasses were constructed, the volume of traffic per day was some 21,000 vehicles. The comparative figure for 1996 is 75,000 vehicles per day on that section--three and a half times greater than the volume of traffic for which the road was constructed some 30 years ago.
The problem is not merely one of volume. The approach to Hatfield Peverel on the A12 is singularly hazardous. Some time after 1965, the Chelmsford section running north-east towards Hatfield Peverel was constructed in three lanes, but the three-lane section ends just short of Hatfield Peverel and thereafter the road goes back to two lanes by way of a defile through the village and out the other side. All of us are aware of the hazards of a road changing from three lanes to two: vehicles bunch together and there is often high-speed and erratic crossing of lanes, and this certainly occurs on the A12 at that point. Indeed, the problem is aggravated by the fact that the vehicles accelerate: the approach to the two-lane section is downhill, thus increasing the speed of vehicles approaching Hatfield Peverel.
Once through Hatfield Peverel, the A12 is joined by a slip road out of the village itself. That slip road serves not only village residents, but those coming from Maldon and the Dengie peninsula to the east in order either to join the A12 or to pass on to Witham and Braintree. As the A12 approaches that slip road, it is coming up a hill and around a bend and the visibility of the entrance to the slip road is extremely obscured for vehicles travelling on the major trunk road, the A12.
Those brave enough to enter the A12 from the Hatfield Peverel slip road running north-east face a downhill short section with a low level of visibility to traffic coming
from behind. Indeed, for the nervous or inexperienced motorist, it is a junction to be avoided. At busy times of day, it is almost impossible to enter the A12 from the Hatfield Peverel slip road because of the speed of traffic and the lack of visibility of oncoming vehicles.
Mr. John Whittingdale (Maldon and East Chelmsford):
I strongly endorse what the hon. Gentleman says. He is right to say that many of my Maldon constituents use the road to Hatfield Peverel to reach the A12, but is he aware that Maldon continues to grow, and that congestion at Danbury is forcing more people to reach the A12 via Hatfield Peverel? The problem which he describes is therefore likely to increase in coming years.
Mr. Hurst:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The population of the old Maldon division, which was formerly part of my constituency, has increased considerably over the past 30 years, and there are proposals that that growth should continue.
Over the past three years, there have been 50 personal injury accidents on the 2 km section of dual carriageway. That number includes five fatalities: it is a tragic coincidence that, today, an inquest is being held in the county town of Chelmsford into the most recent fatality, which occurred earlier this year. The statistic for the accident rate is 0.4 personal injury accidents per million vehicle kilometres; I am advised that that is 50 per cent. higher than the national A road rate, and more than three times the national rate for dual carriageways.
Essex county council, of which I am honoured to remain a member for a few months, has been concerned at the dangers presented by the A12 Hatfield Peverel to Witham section and has put at the top of its priority list the link road proposal to which I shall come shortly. I attended a meeting of the highways committee held earlier in the month, at which the proposal was placed in the priority category, above improvements to the M11 in west Essex.
I now turn to the point made by the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) about population growth. In the 1960s, Witham was designated to receive industrial development linked with population growth, predominantly from east London. Over 20 years, until the 1980s, its population increased greatly, and the growth continues to the present day, especially on the south side of the town. An additional development is planned for the south side: known as the Maltings Lane development, it will add a further 800 dwellings.
It is significant that a debate earlier this morning dealt with housing allocation, because the Essex structure plan would site a further 4,000 dwellings, over and above those already allocated, near the Witham-Hatfield Peverel-Kelvedon section of the A12. As the hon. Gentleman said, there is substantial growth in the Maldon area and in parts of Danbury and Chelmsford, which will lead to increased use of the intersections on to the A12.
Turning to local people's response, a consultation exercise was carried out by Essex county council on options and proposals for improvement by way of a link road. The exercise took a fairly wide form--in particular, an exhibition at Hatfield Peverel village hall in summer 1996 ran for some time and attracted many visitors who gave their preferences. The current favoured scheme is for
a road to run parallel on the north-east side of Hatfield Peverel to link up with the intersection at Witham. It will have limited or no environmental disadvantages and will ensure that all local traffic--not only from Hatfield Peverel, but from the Maldon, Dengie and Chelmsford areas--can be routed without entering the A12 at all. If local traffic is removed from the A12, that has obvious advantages, not only for local residents, but for those travelling on the A12 who are at risk from those seeking access to the A12 dual carriageway, whether carefully or otherwise.
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