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Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale) (Lab): May I start by referring to the 1992 general election? If the House will bear with me, it will see the point that I am trying to make. My agent was called Tom Sherrett and he was always against campaign visits. I eventually persuaded him to allow me to have a campaign visit. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) came along. We had a fantastic campaign visit and, a week later, I won with a grand majority of 191. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury and my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, who will both stand down at the general election when it is called, for their help during the 1992 election and for their contribution to the workings of the House since then. I wish them both well in whatever life form they find themselves in after Westminster.
I want to raise with the Deputy Leader of the House a number of issues which are constituency-related but on which the Government may be able to offer some help. For the past two years, an event called Thundersprint has taken place in Northwich town centre in my constituency. It is a great razzmatazz, a fantastic spectacle where people from across the country demonstrate their prowess on motorbikes, which can be vintage bikes or state-of-the-art formula 1 racing bikes.
Because of the way the current law is worded, the event has to take place on a car park. Last year, 60,000 people attended Northwich town centre to witness that spectacle. This year, on 8 May, when I hope to be the guest of honour, the event will probably attract up to 100,000 people.
We have to modify the way in which the event takes place because Northwich town centre is being stabilised. I have mentioned it in the House before. The town centre is built over four disused salt mines, which are in danger of collapse. A Government-funded project of £32 million is starting to stabilise the town centre. We are having to organise the Thundersprint event around the obstacles that the stabilisation project has placed in the car park.
A far better solution, which would be safer for cyclists, for spectators and for everyone else involved, would be to allow the event to take place on the highway. Of course, we would have to close it for a few hours on the Saturday and Sunday for the event to take place, but it would be far better. I was heartened when on 6 July last year Regent street, here in the capital, was closed so that Formula 1 cars could be demonstrated on the highway, one after the other, racing up and down the street, and then taking part in a grand parade. If it is possible for Formula 1 cars to do that on one of the main roads of the capital, why cannot the same be done over 500 m on Barons Quay road in Northwich town centre? I have raised that issue with the Under-Secretary of
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State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson), and with the Secretary of State for Transport, and even at this late stage I am hopeful that they will be able to bring forward a solution that will allow that fantastic event to take place and thousands of people to come to Northwich town to enjoy themselves.
I turn to the Telecommunications Act 1984. I had not been aware that that Act allows telecommunications operators the statutory right to have access to erect their equipment on adopted highways. I do not pretend that they actually put their masts in the roadway, but one operator proposes to put a telecommunications mast on a grass verge that is part of the adopted highway in the Leftwich estate in my constituency. It wants to erect a 12 m parallel column with three 2G/3G dual-band antennas within a GRP shroud—whatever that may be—and radio equipment and ancillary development. The grass verge is less than 1 m wide and is next to a bus stop and a telephone box. That is totally inappropriate, but under the 1984 Act the highways authority does not have the right to object to that access, nor even to charge the telecommunications company rent for the land that it uses. Everybody on the Leftwich estate knows that this is a barmy idea, and fortunately, on Tuesday night Vale Royal borough council rejected the planning application for this telephone communications equipment to be sited there. I pay tribute to my friend and constituent, Allan Lamb, who presented a passionate case on why that application should be refused. The residents of Leftwich will be very relieved about that.
Hon. Members will not know this, but a couple of weeks ago, Rebecca Watts, a baby girl under two years old, died from the very rare acute myeloid leukaemia, which normally affects much older people, usually aged over 50. To make it worse, exactly 12 months ago another baby girl aged under two died of the same condition in the street next door. There was already grave concern about public health among people on the Leftwich estate, and the last thing that they wanted or needed was the erection of a telecommunications mast in the green spaces in their area and the creation of further public health fears. I can report to the House that Central Cheshire NHS Primary Care Trust, the Health Protection Agency and Vale Royal borough council are doing their level best to look into the epidemiology surrounding those two incidences of acute myeloid leukaemia to see whether they are connected and whether a cause can be found. Those agencies are fully committed to keeping my constituents in the Leftwich area of Northwich fully informed of developments, and I am working closely with them to make sure that my constituents are given the reassurances that they want.
I want to move on to another planning issue, which has not been resolved to my satisfaction. On 30 June last year, Vale Royal borough council granted temporary planning permission for an anemometer on Aston Grange farm, which is in one of the most beautiful parts of my constituency. We objected to the application more than 12 months ago because an anemometer measures the power of wind, and we saw it as a precursor to a planning application for a wind farm, which would despoil one of the most beautiful rural parts of my constituency in the Weaver valley. Sadly, our fears have
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come true because Tegni Cymru, the Welsh private electricity company installing the anemometer, has put forward proposals to place four 125-m-high wind turbines on Aston Grange farm. I am determined that we must fight the application when it comes forward, because it would despoil the most beautiful part of my constituency, be a blot on the landscape and represent the loss of a superb visual amenity. Having fought the proposals by Network Rail and the National Grid Company to put a substation and trackside feeder station on the green belt in Weaverham and Acton Bridge in my constituency, I will do all that I can to ensure that that planning application goes no further forward.
I now want to deal with a completely different issue: Cheshire county council's ill-thought-out proposals to slash the salaries of teaching assistants in my constituency. The council has introduced proposals that will mean that teaching assistants will see their pay cut by £2,000 per year, or £40 a week, and that other professionals in the county council area will lose up to £6,000 a year. The county council introduced those cuts as part of its single-status proposals, and the House will not be surprised to know that Unison has rejected the proposals outright because of the effect that they would have on teaching assistants.
There are teaching assistants in every part of my constituency, and the county council is trying to say that they are part-time employees who work only 32 hours a week and not during school holidays. It is clear that the county council does not value the work that they do, so schools such as the Russett special school in Weaverham will lose its teaching assistant, who will look elsewhere for employment because she cannot afford to take the cut in wages that the county council proposes. There are 1,900 teaching assistants in my constituency. I would like the county council to look again at the proposal, and value the work that the assistants do throughout the county to improve education in my constituency.
In the time that I have left, I want to mention the need for a new crossing over the River Mersey. My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House would be surprised if I did not raise that issue—I have done so on a number of occasions. If we are to develop the full economic potential of the north-west and deal with the severe congestion in the borough of Halton, we need a second crossing over the River Mersey—we need the new Mersey gateway.
Halton borough council, together with Liverpool city council, Knowsley metropolitan borough council, Warrington borough council and Cheshire county council, local businesses and the Northwest Development Agency have all said that a second crossing is essential to the north-west. The documentation and paperwork have already been submitted to the Department for Transport, and we are eagerly awaiting an announcement. I hope that one can come soon. I am not exercised by the fact that we might not have a lot of time after Easter, but the crossing is something that we need.
In conclusion, I want to refer to the Riversdale footbridge across the Weaver navigation in the Northwich part of my constituency. In November, British Waterways, which is responsible for the footbridge, closed it without any consultation, announcement or precursor on the health and safety ground that it was structurally unsafe. Ever since, I have
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been pressing British Waterways to try to resolve the problem. The footbridge is an integral part of the footpath networks around Northwich town centre, and it is part of one of the safe routes to Sir John Deane's sixth form college, primary schools and other schools in the area. It is essential that the footbridge opens.
British Waterways says that it has no statutory responsibility to open the footbridge and does not have the £500,000 needed to carry out the repairs. I urge British Waterways, and Cheshire county council as the highways authority, to come forward with a solution that sees the bridge opened at the earliest opportunity.
4.33 pm
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