Transport Strategy

Part of Opposition Day — [1(st) Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 9:07 pm on 5 December 2006.

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Photo of Maria Miller Maria Miller Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) 9:07, 5 December 2006

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but he is, I think, being rather fair-minded to the Government by suggesting that that is their intention. My Basingstoke constituents might have a slightly different spin on that when they look at the amount of house building that is required in north Hampshire and then look at the dearth of funding that follows that centrally driven Government target. The amount of reports, White Papers and documentation that has been produced on the sector under discussion seems to mask a confusion, inconsistency and short-sightedness in transport planning; that is certainly the case in my area of the country.

My constituency of Basingstoke is just the sort of place that Eddington highlighted in his report as requiring a focused policy of investment in transport. It is home to 69,000 jobs. It has one of the largest concentrations of employment in the entire south-east of England, and it is therefore an integral part of the future of this country. The Government have called it one of their diamonds for growth; others have called it part of the string of pearls. They are fine words, but fine words cannot mask the disconnect between house building targets and the lack of investment in infrastructure. The Government need places like Basingstoke to generate the wealth to fund their spending plans, so they need to be prepared to invest in areas such as Basingstoke to ensure that its success is sustainable in the future.

We cannot have commuters spending hours in traffic jams on the M3 motorway. There has also recently been a significant increase in the number of accidents on our section of the motorway, some of which, tragically, have resulted in fatalities. We in north Hampshire have not had sufficient investment, particularly in our motorways and roads.

There are other local examples of lack of investment. There is a major business park in my constituency: the Chineham business park is a highly successful area of economic activity, and it is home to many blue-chip companies and major names that Members will be aware of. A part of the plans for that business park was to build a railway station—Ministers might be aware of that—but since those plans were put forward there has been a complete lack of funding, which means that it has not been possible to deliver that railway station. The result of that is being borne by my constituents, who are now having to deal with major problems to do with traffic cutting through residential areas, because people do not have the option of travelling to their place of work by train rather than car.

Local employers tell me that there are two reasons why they want to locate in Basingstoke. In some cases it is their first choice to locate, rather than Reading, because of the congestion problems in that town that Martin Salter highlighted. They choose Basingstoke because they have access to well qualified and highly experienced staff, but also because of accessibility. I am concerned that the large-scale house building projects that are being foisted on the local council—with very little ability to resist them—combined with lack of investment in transport will simply be no good at all for residents or business.

There are many estimates of how much money is required to fill the yawning infrastructure gap that there is not only in Basingstoke but throughout what is now designated by the South East England Development Agency as a western corridor area. Hampshire county council has told the South East England regional assembly that investment of some £4.5 billion is needed to improve transport infrastructure in the western corridor and Blackwater valley growth area, which, as the hon. Member for Reading, West said, is one of the most important areas of economic development in the country. In my bit of that area—Basingstoke—we need no less than a£250 million investment in transport alone to fill the gap created by the lack of investment in recent years.

I ran off a list of the projects that the western corridor and Blackwater valley area needs in terms of investment in infrastructure—the document has been submitted to the Government—and no fewer than 10 of the 34 projects on that list directly relate to my constituency. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity when he responds to give me some thoughts on how he will help Hampshire county council and SEEDA to plug some of those gaps. The Government are happy to set targets, but they are not prepared to ensure that the plans are in place to enable such targets to be properly thought through. That is a million miles away from the integrated transport policy that they originally promised us; nearly 10 years on from their taking office, we are still waiting.

I want to consider a couple of other examples of how the transport infrastructure gap in my constituency is not just opening up but increasing in magnitude. We have already heard a great deal about the train networks in various parts of the country. I will not dwell on that issue, except to say that my constituents not only have to endure overcrowded trains, they often have to spend an hour travelling into London, unable to sit down for the entire journey—or for the journey back. The train operator promised increases in capacity, but that has yet to become a reality. I welcome the fact that my Front-Bench colleagues have given a commitment to regarding that as an urgent problem as we develop our policies.

There are other pressing issues in my constituency relating to the M3 motorway, which runs directly through its centre. It is an important access route and an important part of why Basingstoke is the success that it is, but a tremendous increase in traffic on that route has not been matched by investment in measures to alleviate the problems associated with congestion and noise. I have recently tabled a number of parliamentary questions on this issue because of an increase in the number of letters that I receive from constituents on it. Government calculations indicate that the level of traffic noise on the M3 between junctions 5 and 7 has increased by about 4.5 dB in the past 20 years. To many a lay person, that might not sound like an enormous increase, but I remind Members that the decibel is a logarithmic unit, and that a 3 dB increase, as the Minister doubtless knows, equates to a doubling in sound level. If Members were to stand by the side of the M3 in Mapledurwell, a beautiful village in my constituency that is completely unshielded from the motorway by any form of physical sound barrier, they would understand why many residents are deeply concerned at the fact that the increase in traffic has not been matched by the provision of sound-avoidance measures.

We thought that we had come some way on this issue under the careful guidance of my predecessor, who obtained an assurance that a noise-retardant surface would be used on the section of the M3 that passes through the centre of my constituency. Indeed, we were very pleased with the outcome of the negotiations with the Government. Only last week, however, I heard that a very firm promise might be overturned; despite a promise to resurface the M3 completely with noise-retardant material only one lane is to be treated. That is a great disappointment to residents of the villages of Mapledurwell, Up Nateley, Nateley Scures and Old Basing, for whom that measure represented their only hope that the Government would try to alleviate a growing problem.

The other result of increased traffic flow on the M3 that has not been coupled with a measure to try to alleviate the problem is congestion at junction 6, especially the Black Dam roundabout. All my constituents who use the M3 are very aware of that problem. The roundabout was built to accommodate a maximum peak flow of about 5,500 vehicles an hour, yet a survey last September found that it was already operating well above capacity, and the Government have no plans to try to improve the situation in the near future, despite significant amounts of house building.

There is a pressing need to upgrade that key section of the motorway, yet when I asked the Minister of State what assessment had been made of the need to increase capacity, he merely replied:

"Agreement was reached in principle on the need to accommodate traffic resulting from the Local Plan...The Highways Agency will review the situation when the Local Plan...becomes clearer."—[ Hansard, 11 November 2005; Vol. 439, c. 782W.]