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Local Traffic Flows (Norwich)

Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what further assessment the Highways Agency has made of local traffic flow following the employment of the Norwich Research Park facilities. [140927]

Mr. Hill: I have asked the Chief Executive of the Highways Agency, Mr. Tim Matthews, to write to my hon. Friend.

Letter from Tim Matthews to Dr. Ian Gibson, dated 30 November 2000:

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions has asked me to reply to your recent question.

The Highways Agency has not carried out an assessment of local traffic flow following the employment of the Norwich Research Park facilities.

If you wish to discuss this matter further please contact Alan Kirkdale, Highways Agency's Area Manager, telephone [phone].

Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what further assessment he has made of the local traffic flow since the planning of a medical school adjacent to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital. [140926]

Mr. Hill: The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions has made no assessment of the traffic flow since the planning of a medical school

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adjacent to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Assessment of the local traffic flow is a matter for Norfolk County Council as the local transport authority to address.

National Parks

Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list for the years (a) 1979-80, (b) 1989-90 and (c) 1998-99, (i) the number of visitors to, (ii) the budget of and (iii) the spend per visitor at each national park. [141116]

Mr. Mullin: The Government grant for each National Park in England and Wales was:

	1979-80	1989-90	1998-99	1994 visitor survey(16)
Park	£000	£000	£000	Million
Brecon Beacons	297	818	1,942	3.7
Broads(17)	--	900	1,500	5.4
Dartmoor	399	1,117	1,942	3.8
Exmoor	262	916	1,607	1.4
Lake District	709	1,742	2,836	13.9
Northumberland	251	560	1,184	1.4
North York Moors	370	1,112	2,179	7.8
Peak District	909	2,462	4,060	12.4
Pembrokeshire	323	989	2,098	4.7
Snowdonia	431	1,311	2,654	6.6
Yorkshire Dales	449	1,155	2,104	8.3
Total	5,154(18)	13,082	24,106	69.4

⁽¹⁶⁾ 'Visitors to National Parks', Countryside Commission, 1996, ISBN 086170 4681

⁽¹⁷⁾ Broads Authority created in 1988.

⁽¹⁸⁾ Includes a separate publicity budget for all Parks of £754,000

The grant figures do not include local authority contributions to Park Authorities (usually one-third of Government grant) or other sources of finance, e.g. EU funding.

The visitor figures come from the only national survey for all parks, which was produced in 1994. The totals for the Peak District, Lake District and Snowdonia are considered to be substantial under-estimates. A new national survey of park visitors is expected in the next UK Day Visits Survey, which is due to be undertaken in 2001. A number of Park Authorities carry out their own regular surveys, but that information is not held centrally. It is therefore not possible to produce a comparison of Park Authority spend per visitor.

Environment Agency

Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how much was spent in the earliest and most recent years for which figures are available by the Environment Agency in each of its administrative areas. [141038]

Mr. Mullin: The information is as follows.

£ million

Environment Agency region	1996-97	1999-2000
Anglian	96.2	92.1
North East	66.7	70.7
North West	49.6	65.9
Midlands	65.2	70.6
Southern	46.5	50.4
South West	56.1	54.6
Thames	92.8	141.0
Wales	43.6	48.7

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Rural Post Offices

Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what representations he has received on the application of climate change levy charges to rural post offices as customers of Northern Electric and Gas; and if he will make a statement. [140880]

Mr. Meacher: The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has not received any representations from rural post offices regarding climate change levy charges. The climate change levy will take effect on 1 April 2001 and will apply to all of the non domestic sector. The levy will play a major role in helping the UK to meet its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Parliamentary Questions

Mr. McNamara: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he will reply to the question of 2 November from the hon. Member for Hull, North; and if he will place in the Library a copy of the Sykes' Accommodation report on the implications of closing the Hull Office of the HSE. [141107]

Mr. Meacher: I replied to my hon. Friend's question today, Official Report, columns 756-57W.

Community Transport Services

Judy Mallaber: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he will extend fuel duty rebate to community transport services as announced in Transport 2010-the Ten Year Plan. [141002]

Mr. Hill: We are taking forward the commitment announced in "Transport 2010" that we would work up proposals for extending fuel duty rebate to a wider range of community transport services. We shall be consulting on these proposals shortly with the intention of having new rules in place for the 2001-02 financial year.

Urban Capacity

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will require local authorities to publish their urban capacity reports. [140904]

Ms Beverley Hughes: Forthcoming good practice guidance to local authorities will advise authorities to take account of the views of interested parties and potential users in preparing urban housing capacity studies. It is expected that local authorities will publish these studies and the guidance will advise them to do so.

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions which local authorities in Hampshire have completed an urban capacity study. [140905]

Ms Beverley Hughes: Hampshire County Council undertook a co-ordinated urban capacity study for the whole of the county in 1998 for the County Structure Plan. Since then five authorities have completed their own urban capacity studies and a further six have studies which are under way.

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Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will instruct local authorities not to identify any reserve sites for new building until all authorities in a planning region have completed urban capacity studies. [140903]

Ms Beverley Hughes: Our planning guidance for housing (PPG3) states that all local authorities should undertake urban housing capacity studies. They should take account of such studies in updating their local plans. All sites proposed for housing development should be tested against the policies set out in PPG3.

Starter Home Initiative

Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if Hampshire Police are included in the Government's Starter Home Initiative for key public workers. [140946]

Mr. Mullin: We announced in July that £250 million would be available over the next three years to fund the Starter Home Initiative. This will help key workers on modest incomes to buy their own homes in high price, high demand areas while helping their employers to address their recruitment needs. We will be announcing further details of the scheme, and inviting bids for funding, in the near future.

Packaging Waste

Mr. Bill O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what percentage of packaging waste that is currently reprocessed is generated from (a) industrial waste, (b) retail waste and (c) local authorities; and if he will make a statement. [141178]

Mr. Mullin: Businesses that are obligated to recover and recycle specified tonnages of packaging waste under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations are not required to establish whether the packaging waste is derived from the commercial, industrial or household waste stream. However, of the tonnages of packaging waste that flow into the waste stream in the UK, the amounts of each of the main packaging materials that arise as waste in (a) the commercial/industrial and (b) the household (i.e. collected by local authorities) waste stream are as follows:

	Commercial/ industrial stream (%)	Household waste stream (%)	Total tonnage in waste stream
Paper	87.5	12.5	3,855,000
Glass	16	84	2,200,000
Aluminium	5	95	120,000
Steel	29	71	750,000
Plastics	35	65	1,678,900

As targets for recovery and recycling of packaging waste rise, it is likely that greater amounts of packaging waste from the household waste stream will be collected and recovered.

Mr. Bill O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of progress towards achieving his target of

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a 28 per cent. increase in the recovery and recycling of packaging materials up to the end of 2001; and if he will make a statement. [141179]

Mr. Mullin: When the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 Regulations came into force, recovery was at 30 per cent. of which recycling made up around 27 per cent. By the end of 1999 we had reached 38 per cent. recovery and we expect to reach 50 per cent. in 2001 in line with the EC Directive target. We are already meeting the Directive's recycling target of 25 per cent.

Businesses obligated under the packaging Regulations have been working towards the target levels of packaging waste recovery in the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste since the Regulations came into force in 1997. The Directive requires the UK to recover 50 per cent. of packaging waste by 2001. In our estimation, the UK's recovery of packaging waste will have to increase from around 38 per cent. at the end of 1999 to reach 50 per cent. in 2001, i.e. an increase of some 12 percentage points or, in tonnage terms, just over one million tonnes. We would expect further progress to be made in the course of 2000 but final figures for 2000 will not be available until mid 2001.

Mr. Bill O'Brien: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the impact of the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 on the recovery and recycling infrastructure in the last three years. [141180]

Mr. Mullin: In the three full years in which the recovery and recycling obligations under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 have been in effect, the recovery and recycling infrastructure in the UK has had to develop to deal with increasing amounts of reprocessing in order to meet interim targets under the Regulations.

The following table shows the interim targets in the packaging Regulations, the tonnage of packaging waste estimated to flow into the waste stream in each of the three years, and the amounts of packaging waste recovered and recycled.

	1998	1999	2000
Targets (recovery and recycling)--percentage	38	43	45
	7	10	13
Tonnage in waste stream--million tonnes	10.2	9.2	9.2
Recovery (recycling)--tonnes	3,338,705	3,497,647	(19)2,577,982
	(2,890,351)	(3,006,342)	--

⁽¹⁹⁾ Up to end September 2000 only

In 2001, the tonnage of packaging flowing into the UK waste stream is estimated at 9.3 million tonnes, 50 per cent. of which must be recovered if the Directive targets are to be met. The UK recovery and recycling infrastructure will therefore have to deliver some 4.65 million tonnes of packaging waste recovery next year.

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