Clause 40 - Motorway picnic areas etc.
Road Safety Bill
5:45 pm
Mr David Jamieson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Plymouth, Devonport, Labour)
My hon. Friend is right. We appreciate the work that has been carried out by the University of Loughborough, which has helped to inform much of our policy making in this area. We are not creating competition for the motorway service areas; this provision complements, and is not meant to supplant, the work that they do. The hon. Member for Christchurch said that it costs about £25 million to provide a site. I think that I pay a large chunk of that every time I buy a cup of tea or coffee in one of them. The prices are generally high because of the facilities that they have to operate 24 hours a day.
How they are going to be operated is a matter for further discussion. We were asked about France. Yes, we have been talking with the French ministry of transport on the operation and costs of running the aires. The hon. Member for Taunton and the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire raised the running costs. We anticipate that the annual running and maintenance costs will be about £300,000 a year. That will be borne by the taxpayer. The toilets will be cleaned regularly. There will be a presence on the sites some of the time. The managing agents of the motorway, who are regularly patrolling for other reasons, will be calling in. We could have CCTV and so on to make sure that the sites are not being abused.