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Further consideration adjourned.— [Mr. Watts.]
To be further considered tomorrow.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House as to the intervals between stages of Bills brought in upon Ways and Means Resolutions, more than one stage of the Finance Bill may be taken at any sitting of the House.— [Mr. Watts]
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): I propose to take motions 4 and 5 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees),
That the draft Trade Marks (Relative Grounds) Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 8th May, be approved.
That the draft Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 Statutory Sum Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 16th May, be approved. —[ Mr. Watts.]
REGULATORY REFORM
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 18(1)(a) (Consideration of draft regulatory reform orders)
That the draft Regulatory Reform (Game) Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 4th June, be approved. — [ Mr. Watts.]
EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees),
That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 8322/07, Commission Green Paper, The European Research Area: New Perspectives; encourages UK stakeholders to participate in the consultation process which the Commission has inaugurated; and agrees that the issues identified in the document are of vital importance to ensuring the effective development of the European Research Area. —[ Mr. Watts.]
petitions
Toxic Material (Ffos-y-frân)
10.34 pm
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd (Meirionnydd Nant Conwy) (PC): I wish to present a petition from the constituents of Merthyr Tydfil regarding the toxic effect of the open-cast site at Ffos-y-frân, near Merthyr Tydfil. Previous petitions have had 25,000 signatories. This petition contains six signatures of the people worst affected.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs...to use his powers to either reverse this planning decision affecting the Ffos-y-frân site at Merthyr Tyfdil, which has failed to take sufficient note of public concern and outrage over toxic material being disturbed on this said site, and to ensure that any revised application would be bound by law to include a 500 metre buffer zone protection provision; or at this stage retrospectively, using his extensive discretionary powers, award the inclusion of a 500 metre buffer zone distance between this site specifically and homes and schools to prevent the disturbance of toxic waste; or insist, using his station, that the Welsh Assembly, with its devolved power, implements either of the above measures.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
Inappropriate Development (Benfleet)
10.36 pm
Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con):
I am pleased to present a petition against inappropriate development next to one of the most important and beautiful conservation areas in Essex, opposite St. Mary’s church in Benfleet. It is remarkable that Brian Keeler, a campaigner who is held in high public esteem, was able to gather almost 1,000 signatures in a very short space of time. I am grateful to other excellent campaigners from our community, such as the president of the friends of St. Mary’s church, Chris Findlay. The petition explains why the development is totally unacceptable, and I urge local councillors to listen to
residents and to reject the application. I thank each of the petitioners for caring enough about their community and environment to sign this excellent petition.
To the House of Commons,
The Petition of people living around the St. Mary’s Church Conservation Area, declares that we the residents of Benfleet and surrounding areas object to the proposed demolition of the parade of shops opposite the historic St. Mary's Church, in High Road, Benfleet to make way for a new block of four shops with five one bed and eight two bed flats in a two storey development above the shops with underground parking, on the grounds that the access is unacceptable, there are insufficient parking arrangements, particularly for visitors to those new properties and shops, and consequently the shops and public will suffer, because the bulk of the proposed building would be unacceptably detrimental to the street scene in this sensitive position around the Conservation Area and because this would put unacceptable additional stress on the existing infrastructure at a sensitive point on the highway and for many other valid planning reasons as set out by the Member of Parliament and the previous Council members for the ward, in their objections to the earlier applications which were rejected.
The Petitioners therefore call on the House of Commons to implore the Government to impress upon Castle Point Borough Council, and the three Boyce Ward councillors in particular, the imperative that this application is decided by members rather than unelected unaccountable officers, and the need to reject the application on behalf of all residents of Castle Point who are sick to the back teeth of the attempts to overdevelop their community.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
Strategic Routes (South-West)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Watts.]
10.38 pm
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue tonight. I notice that the last time I raised the issue of roads in the south-west on the Adjournment it was at 11.15 pm, so tonight’s timing is slightly better.
Although the title of my debate on the Order Paper is “Strategic routes in the South West”, I hope to reduce the scope of that a little, as it would be a very large subject. One might have a debate about the rail system in the west country, which is desperately in need of investment to meet the demands on it, or about the motorway system. I want to concentrate my comments, however, on the A303 in my constituency and the strategic routes between the south coast and Bristol and Bath. I will try desperately to put out of my mind the fact that, because of the Glastonbury festival traffic, it took me four hours to drive from my constituency this morning along the said A303. Indeed, it is not capacity or journey times that I want to concentrate on, but rather safety and the quality of life for people who live in my constituency.
The particular stretch of the A303 that most interests me is between Sparkford and Ilchester. It horrifies me to realise that I have been talking at intervals about that stretch of road, which is only 3Â1/2 miles long, for the 10 years that I have been in the House and before that as a county councillor. We went through a long process immediately prior to my entering the House in 1997, when the then Government produced plans for safety improvements on that stretch. They were put to local people and went through a public inquiry. The public inquiry satisfied itself that there were no overwhelming environmental problems or problems with local concerns about the plans.
That was different from other parts of the A303. There was considerable concern about the implications of schemes to increase capacity over the Blackdowns, and we have a continuing problem with what can be done at Stonehenge. However, there was a general realisation that there could be a significant improvement in the safety of the stretch of road from Sparkford to Ilchester by dualling it, and that that could be done without an excessive take of land and reasonably inexpensively.
The scheme got caught in the moratorium on road building as the new Government took office in 1997. We then entered into what I have learned to call the south-west area multi-modal study—the so-called SWARMMS report—which looked at the whole length of the A303, and there it stayed. I have raised the issue at regular intervals since then. When I did so in 1998, the then Minister, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson), gave me a learned dissertation on Stonehenge and why I should care more about it than about my constituents. I do care about Stonehenge, but I was interested in safety improvements between Sparkford and Podimore.
Every time we have raised the issue since 1997 we have seen an ever-receding prospect of action. Why do we need action? It is a stretch of road where the A303
changes from a dual carriageway to a single carriageway and back to a dual carriageway. There is a pinchpoint. It carries a significant amount of traffic. I have said before that the A303 carries more traffic than many motorways, particularly in the summer season, when there is a great deal of holiday traffic, much of which, for some reason, wants to go to Devon and Cornwall. I cannot understand why entirely, but it does, and it goes through Somerset. There is also a lot of locally induced traffic from the Glastonbury festival, the Yeovilton air show and local events of that kind.
The other critical factor is the distance of the stretch of road from London and the far south-west. It is at the point when drivers start to get tired and lose their concentration. According to information that I have been given by the Highways Agency, the sad consequence of that is that there have been 18 deaths and 68 serious injuries on that short, 3Â1/2 mile stretch. That is significant.
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con): The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case. I hope that he agrees that there is another reason for taking the steps that he advocates: the effect lower down on the A35 on the south coast, where my constituents suffer from an excess of through traffic which could be relieved to a considerable extent by dealing with pinchpoints on the A303.
Mr. Heath: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know the details of the situation that he describes in Dorset, but I am well aware of the case for establishing the A303 as the second strategic route—as I am told I must call it. Sometimes I am told that I must call it policy TR3 of the regional spatial strategy. All those acronyms denote the fact that it is a very important road and something needs to be done.
Apparently, that stretch of road will not be done before 2016 at the earliest. The implication is that if the problems of Stonehenge—which I understand is a difficult conundrum, given that a world heritage site is right next to a trunk road—cannot be satisfactorily resolved, nothing will be done along the entire length of the A303. We have proposals for a single scheme, which should not be included in the whole scheme for the length of the A303 but judged on its merits. Those merits suggest, in safety terms and for the sake of saving lives, that it is justified. It concerns me greatly that it will be held up by circumstances beyond the control of anyone who is making the case for it. Those circumstances include the Stonehenge issues and the problem of investing in the A358 as the other leg that brings the traffic from the A303 back to the M5. I ask the Minister whether we can look again at the safety record of that short stretch of road and how we can improve it. We cannot reasonably and responsibly wait until 2016 for something to be done.
The other outstanding issue on the A303 is the noise-reduction surface, which we were faithfully promised by the Highways Agency would be in place four years ago. For the sake of their quality of life, people who live in close proximity to a road that for all intents and purposes is carrying the traffic of a motorway, in places such as Blackford, Holton, Maperton and Compton Pauncefoot, have been desperately waiting for a change in the surface. They are sadly disappointed that it has not been done yet.
I thought that the subject of the second strategic route was opaque, but BB2SC—as I am told I must call the other route—is even more obscure. BB2SC does not yet exist but will be the road that will connect the south coast ports of Poole and Southampton with Bristol and Bath and, therefore, the motorway network to the north. The difficulty at the moment is that we have not identified that key strategic route. The consequence of that is that heavy goods vehicles leaving those ports—and we are told that both ports will be expanded—take totally unsuitable routes north. They choose different routes, one of which is the A357 through Dorset into the Blackmore vale and, in my constituency, through villages such as Henstridge and Templecombe. I cannot imagine villages that would be less suitable for heavy goods vehicles, given the width of the carriageway, the fact that buildings are very close to the road on each side, and the sharp bends. They are totally unsuitable for lorries of any size.
In addition, Templecombe has a low railway bridge and, every month or so, a lorry gets stuck under it. I was in Templecombe only three or four weeks ago and a lorry got stuck. It got squashed under the bridge about 20 minutes after Abbas and Templecombe primary school had finished its day. Had that happened 20 minutes earlier, the pavement under the bridge would have been full of primary-age children. That is unsatisfactory, dangerous, and could be completely avoided if we had a proper strategic route, with all the necessary signage, to take lorries away. The road is supposed be an A route, but it is incapable of taking that sort of traffic.
Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman think that satellite navigation plays a part with the lorries? My constituency is rural, like his, and I too have seen more problems with lorries. It seems that satnav gives drivers the most direct route, but using some of the most inappropriate roads possible.
Mr. Heath: I am so glad that the hon. Lady has asked that question, as the next word on my notes is “satnav”. She is right; in the case that I described, the Slovenian driver was using satnav. As a result, he followed an unsuitable road. Satnav navigation systems are fine, in their place, and they have a value, but far too many heavy goods vehicles—especially those driven by foreign drivers—seem to use inappropriate devices intended for cars rather than heavy goods vehicles. In any case, the HGV satnav programs do not show clearly enough the unsuitability of some roads. For instance, the driver of a delivery lorry tried to make a delivery right next to my office in Frome. He went down a cobbled street in Sheppards Barton in Frome and met a flight of steps—that was where the satnav had sent him, but that is not an entirely satisfactory routing system.
I raised this matter with the Minister in October, in an Adjournment debate held by the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). We heard some promising news about what the Government were doing about satnav, so I wonder whether he can update the House about that this evening. He said then that the consultation about the Government’s proposals was to end on 9 January this year. We should therefore have some firm proposals about what should be done, but it
seems to me that we should translate the suitability of roads and the various obstacles on them on to a commonly agreed, pan-European satnav format which HGV drivers must use. In that way, all drivers can use the same basis of information, and lorries can be prevented from using unsuitable roads.
I conclude by saying that I want the upgrade of the A303 linking Sparkford, Ilchester and Podimore recognised as something that can be done soon. It has already gone through public inquiries, so we know the arguments and issues involved and that the upgrade will save lives. I also want to ensure that we identify a proper north-south route from the south coast ports to Bristol and Bath, with the result that lorries do not use grossly unsuitable roads. I also want to know what has happened to the noise-reducing resurfacing of the A303 in my constituency. I was promised that, but the money seems to have been moved elsewhere.
Finally, I want to know what is to be done about satnav. We need a system that is more suitable for users and which stops lorry drivers from finding themselves in absurd positions. Most importantly, a proper satnav system will improve the quality of life of my constituents and the constituents of other hon. Members in the area.
10.53 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on securing this debate and making his constituents’ concerns so clear to the House. In the next few minutes, I hope to be able to give him the information, if not the comfort, that he seeks.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the A303 is an important trunk road, and part of the strategic route from London to Exeter. Much of it is already dual carriageway, but he was right to say that there remain a number of single-carriageway sections, including the stretch between Sparkford and Ilchester in his constituency. The A303 serves local, regional and longer distance traffic and, as he said, it is a popular holiday route to the south-west. It is also an important route for businesses from Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.
The single carriageway sections are often congested during the summer months as the road provides the most direct route to the south-west for tourists from London and the south-east. The main alternative to the road is the longer M4 and M5 route around Bristol, but as we all know there is increasing pressure and congestion on the M4 and M5, too. It is against that background that we accepted the conclusion of the London to south-west and south Wales multi-modal study that, in transport terms, there is a strong case for the whole of the A303 route to be improved, which would provide a second high quality dual carriageway road from London to the south-west.
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