|

Speech on the A12 in the House of Common

Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con): The A12 road that runs through the spine of Chelmsford and Essex up into Suffolk and beyond, just into Norfolk. It is one of the main feeder roads into the east of England and East Anglia. It serves not only the county of Essex, but the ports at Harwich and Felixstowe. The serious problem is that this road is old and constantly having to be repaired and, sadly, because of the increase in traffic—some of it domestic vehicles and a lot of it business generated by the ports—it is becoming too congested to be viable as a through road and a main road into one of the most important regions of this country.

I am pleased to see that Essex county council has spent the last six months making significant changes to the entrance and exit from the M25 on to the A12, which, although it has been open only for a few weeks, has made a significant improvement. If one goes from that point to my constituency of West Chelmsford, which means travelling 13 miles of road, one will see that about half of it is made up of three lanes, and the other half, two lanes. Beyond that, on the way to Colchester and Ipswich, the road constantly changes from two lanes to three lanes, which enhances the congestion problems.

Another problem is that investment is needed to improve the road to make it one worthy for the demands made of it, and to enhance it for domestic and business travellers in the region, and to and from the region and its ports. There was a crackpot idea some years ago, in the early 1990s, when the then Government suddenly unveiled in one of their White Papers on road building that they proposed to build a brand new motorway known as the M12 from a point off the M25 right up to Chelmsford, going west of the existing A12. That came as a considerable surprise to most people because no one had been calling for a new motorway. I thought that it was particularly noble of the then Secretary of State for Transport to come up with the idea, because the road passed within about 200 yd of the garden of his house, which seemed rather extreme to me. Fortunately, though, cooler and saner heads prevailed and the then Government abandoned that cockeyed scheme. It has not been resurrected, even though when the current Government were carrying out inquiries and investigations on how to improve the road situation around Ipswich and the knock-on effect down the A12, it was looked at. Rightfully and thankfully, however, it was dismissed as a non-starter.

We do not need a brand-new road. There is a simple solution to the existing problem, which is to invest in the infrastructure by upgrading the existing A12 in order that all the stretches of only two lanes have three lanes. That will cater for traffic and reduce congestion problems, costs for industry and the road safety problems that result from the bottlenecks. I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris), about the matter on 4 March, and I was pleased to find that he shares my view that the road is of national importance and that it needs a major upgrade.

That view is shared, interestingly enough, by the Minister for the East of England; it is nice to know that she has a view on the issue. It would be quite nice if she popped into Essex at some point as she is the Minister for the East of England, and no doubt, at some point, she will. She has had that job since the beginning of July, and she has not yet stepped into the county council area of Essex, which is the county with the largest population in the region for which she is the Minister. We look forward to welcoming her to Essex at some point when, in the course of her busy duties in the east of England, she can find time to visit us. She, too, believes that the road is important and needs improving and enhancing.

When comments are made quickly at Question Time, the full horror of what is being said does not always sink in. However, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport said that

“it is up to the hon. Gentleman and others to try to persuade the regional transport board for the east of England that it should prioritise that work... It is for the transport board to look at the priorities and make its recommendations to the Government.”—[ Official Report, 4 March 2008; Vol. 472, c.1584.]

When one reads between the lines and finds the other side of the story, it is clear that the regional funding allocation for the east of England is not sufficient to meet the needs of the region. That surprises no Conservative Members, because we have been complaining for many years about the way in which the Government spread their allocation of funding around the country. There are not that many Labour councils or Members of Parliament in the east of England, so as with other distributions of moneys, we do not do as well as the Labour heartlands.

A letter from Essex county council states that

“the Regional Funding Allocation... is not sufficient to meet the needs of the Region. For example, the A120 proposed improvement alone is expected to cost in the region of £400 million, which is almost half the total available for the Region’s transport budget for the period to 2016. If one adds approximately £600 million for the A12 upgrade, and it could be much more, then it is obvious that unless funding is significantly increased the A12 will again fail to be funded under the RFA.”

What is badly needed now will become a pipe dream and we will have to wait many years for its realisation.

Given that Ministers recognise the importance of the road and of improvements to it to solve the current problems, which will only get worse as time goes on, it is time the Government were prepared to reconsider and either make realistic allocations of money to the region for its road funding programmes, or make the road a project in its own right, and provide substantial funding so that we can get the work done and improve and enhance one of the main feeder roads into one of the most important regions in the country.