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Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, will the noble Lord remind the House, and tell the Minister who is not familiar with this road, that when the road passes
 
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through Worthing it goes through a suburb? It is a major road in a suburb. This is the major east-west south coastal road going through a suburb comprising timber framed houses in north Worthing. There should certainly be a bypass north of Worthing. I hope that the Minister will address that point which was mentioned so eloquently by my noble friend.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I refer not only to the problem that he has identified but also to that of people who live in that area who have left their houses. Those houses are blighted as no one knows what will happen in relation to roads in that locality.

The journey that I have so far talked about takes us from Chichester to Shoreham and through the beautiful Sussex Downs to Lewes, which is another market town with narrow streets more akin to Victorian times than the present day. However, this is precious to the people of Lewes. Therefore, I decided to speak to my honourable friend Norman Baker MP for Lewes. Over the years, he has campaigned constantly for improvements to the road, and he has helped to introduce a number of features to reduce accidents. However, he does not accept that dual carriageway roads are safer than single carriageway. He is worried that a dual carriageway would also increase overall traffic levels, as new roads always do. He is concerned that at the Lewes end there are serious capacity problems.

Overall, my honourable friend believes that arguments put forward for a dual carriageway, such as safety, congestion and economic development, are flawed. Those are his views. There is no proper consensus on what is appropriate and what is desirable. Different towns along the road pose different problems. If I were to talk to my colleagues in Eastbourne, they would completely disagree with my honourable friend in Lewes. We must accept that the A27 is a serious issue that deserves serious thought.

We must work to ease bottlenecks, which are choking some of the most beautiful places in Sussex. We must ensure that there are immediate improvements, so that accidents are minimised. We must consult local communities on the ecological and environmental impact of improvements. I do not disagree with what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, that once the roads are in place people will appreciate what has been done for their benefit. The proposals for the south-east sprawl of new houses must spell out the impact on transport. Finally, we must take a holistic approach to transport infrastructure so that rural communities are not isolated.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking for his skilful and comprehensive introduction. I remind the House of my interest as the president of the Heavy Transport Association.

My noble friend presented his case far better than I could have done; and I do not propose to argue for or against it. That does not mean that it is not an
 
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appropriate question; far from it, because the same problems will arise up and down the country on many similar routes. Large numbers of primary routes have insufficient capacity and cause misery for the local population and, worse still, some stretches of routes have a consistently high accident rate. I say "consistently" because every year on each stretch a similar number of people are killed or seriously injured. The Minister should carefully examine the EuroRAP report that covers this point.

I am not saying that the Government are doing nothing; there is some good news. For instance, on the A45 Coventry ring road, in 1997–99 on that 20 kilometres there were 48 killed or seriously injured in accidents. By 2000–02, that had been reduced to just 14. That shows what can be done by extensive route action, in other words civil engineering works, just like the ones proposed by my noble friends.

The Highways Agency does a good job, but it will always be limited by government funding and the decisions of Ministers, as we have said this evening. Highways Agency officials have the ethos of reducing congestion and improving journey times and safety. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, identified the possibility of improving rail services, which is probably why his right honourable friend Mr Prescott set up the SRA, then scrapped it within a few years. The noble Lord is right, if local rail services can be improved, pressure on roads could be reduced. However, rail cannot meet the needs of short- distance freight associated with local business. Nor is it flexible enough for those supplying services that support industry and consumers.

The noble Lord, Lord Rea, also suggested reducing the speed limit to 50mph to increase the flow rate. A few years ago, I would have suggested that his contribution would benefit from further research, but after the experience of the M25 with a 40mph speed limit at Heathrow, he may well be right. The Government will also have to consider whether the current 40mph speed limit for HGVs on single carriageways is appropriate. The Minister should consider whether 50mph might be more appropriate when the road is suitable.

The noble Lord, Lord Rea, and others talked about AONBs and by implication SSSIs. This is a frequently encountered difficulty with new road construction schemes—it always seems that an SSSI is located just where the bypass is wanted. My noble friend Lord Baker described the dangers of this road. I am not familiar with it, but it seemed that as well as being dangerous it is a scenic route.

Noble Lords mentioned level crossings. While grade separated crossings on trunk routes are desirable because they eliminate choke points on primary routes, I am not sure that the RMT policy of replacing all level crossings on high speed lines is sensible. Many more lives would be saved by having grade separated junctions on all trunk roads.
 
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My noble friend Lord Baker hopes that the Minister will offer a solution to the problems on the A27. For the reasons discussed tonight, I hope that he does not hold his breath.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, with his great knowledge of the heavy vehicle industry, does he agree that a dual carriageway with properly engineered intersections is inherently a safer road than a single track, curving, hilly road such as the A27?

Earl Attlee: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. Furthermore, pollution from heavy goods vehicles would be drastically reduced, because with an awkward single carriageway, the vehicles must work much harder.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for introducing this interesting and very specific debate, and for the considerable interest that it has generated in all parts of the House on the question of this road. Although I would not call myself familiar with the A27, I know it well enough and am well aware of the features to which he has drawn attention. It is a classic road where improvements made to limited sections of it only throw into sharper contrast the problems where improvements have not been effected.

Let me disabuse the noble Lord of one notion. I do not have the statistics immediately to hand, but I very much doubt that the A27 is the most dangerous road in southern England. I understand the passion with which he puts his point of view and agree entirely that safety is a very important issue with regard to roads. However, on reflection he will recognise that we need to improve a very large number of roads in terms of safety features.

The noble Lord made a comment about other parts of the country that might be represented by more Members from my party. Two years ago, the BBC identified in a major programme what it called the most dangerous road in the country. It has now been surpassed by another road in the north of England, but it was the road that linked Manchester to Sheffield north of the Snake Pass, the A635. It had a single carriageway in each direction with small numbers of passing points. I would like to enlighten the noble Lord on the reason why you have two lanes going uphill rather than down. It is more important to be able to pass slow-moving and very heavy vehicles going uphill, when their speed is necessarily reduced to a crawl, than when they are going downhill. That road was reckoned to be the most dangerous in England, and its statistics compare woefully with the A27. We must not exaggerate the point, but I congratulate the noble Lord on emphasising the safety factors. They are prominent in our consideration with regard to improvements of the road.

Let me begin with the good news first, if only because, on time-limited debates, I am always terrified that I have not reached the main message before my
 
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time has expired. We recognise the importance of the point made about the crossing over the railway line. That is why we are committed to a scheme that will start in 2006–07 to have a bridge over the railway line. I recognise that the noble Lord would like it wider and grander than it is to be, but it is to be a three-lane road over the railway line. It will massively reduce congestion, which queues up whenever trains go past on the level crossing. We hope that it will improve the railway service too, by clearing the issue so far as the road is concerned. It will also improve safety factors; we all know that there are inherent dangers attendant on crossings on the level between road and rail.

There has been strong pressure from the Health and Safety Executive for the removal of the level crossing, and also locally for both a dual carriageway and a single carriageway solution. It is true that our solution is a compromise. It is to have a three-lane carriageway with a westbound climbing lane for the new road. We have to balance competing demands for traffic movement against environmental sensitivities. The noble Lord was somewhat dismissive of those local sensitivities. He has the great advantage of speaking in this House, but other Members speak in the other place on the basis that they win support from their communities. He will know that at least one other Member takes a diametrically opposite view to his on the matter. He will forgive me if I give way to a certain democratic regard for the sentiments expressed by a Member of the other place representing his constituents, even though the eloquence of the noble Lord has been taken into account in weighing the balance.

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