Asked by Baroness Neville-Rolfe To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what assessment they have made of the impact of
investments in local roads on traffic congestion and productivity
in local areas. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State,
Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con) My Lords, as
set out in last year’s Transport Investment...Request free trial
Asked by
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have
made of the impact of investments in local roads on traffic
congestion and productivity in local areas.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, as set out in last year’s Transport Investment
Strategy, our investment seeks to reduce congestion, raise
productivity and support new housing. We estimate from
investment appraisals that local major road schemes
approved by the department since 2012 will produce an
average of £4.50 return for every £1 invested. The
department’s evaluations found that local major schemes
have been successful in delivering reductions in
congestion, often leading to better access to employment
and local businesses.
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(Con)
I thank the Minister. I am glad about the investment in
motorways, bypasses and some of the other things to which
she refers, but do we deal adequately with local
congestion, which is hitting productivity and increasing
air pollution and is frustrating for those of us sitting in
traffic jams? Is she aware that the challenge fund rules
under which smaller councils apply for capital are costly
and a bureaucratic deterrent to spending the money that the
Government have rightly made available for local roads?
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My noble friend raises an important point, and I know that
she met recently with the Roads Ministers to discuss this.
We have been investing heavily in motorways and it is right
that we concentrate spending where it is needed most, but
we know that other important roads have long gone
underfunded. That is why we are consulting on introducing a
major road network from 2020. That will provide a share of
the national roads fund to invest in bypasses and road
widening to help improve congestion. My noble friend also
raised the point of the complexity of these processes.
There are many different schemes available for additional
funding to local authorities—which, of course, is
welcome—but they can be complex. In last year’s Transport
Investment Strategy, we committed to providing targeted
support to local authorities to help develop their bidding
and delivery capability in order to ensure that they get
the appropriate funding.
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(Lab)
My Lords, the Government are quite rightly pleased about
the investment in motorways and I think we would all agree
with that, but the cuts in local government have meant
there have been massive cuts in local road expenditure. Are
the Government going to do what they normally do—create a
crisis and then claim credit when they do something about
it?
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My Lords, much of the funding for local roads is paid
directly to local authorities through the direct transport
funding and the local growth fund. However, we recognise
that local authorities do not always have enough money to
tackle the large projects which are needed to improve
productivity and reduce congestion. That is why we have a
number of schemes to help local authorities pay for those,
such as the major road network that I have just mentioned,
the pinch-point scheme and the national productivity
investment fund.
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(Con)
My Lords, ever since Quintin Hogg, as he then was, went
north in his flat cap, money has poured into the
north-east. At the same time, the north-east has remained
one of the poorest areas in this country. Is there a
question involved there somewhere?
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I am sorry: I missed the question. Perhaps my noble friend
could repeat it.
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(LD)
My Lords, there is a virtually permanent traffic jam on the
A49 in Hereford. This is a vital route between north and
south Wales and into the Midlands. Thousands of Hereford
residents, as a result of the traffic jam, suffer
dangerously poor air quality from the permanent congestion.
Hereford Council have a well-worked out plan, which would
involve regeneration, for a bypass. Does the Minister agree
that this should be a top priority for the funding that the
Government have offered for local councils?
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My Lords, I agree absolutely that the funding we are making
available should address exactly the problem raised by the
noble Baroness. As I have said, the major road network
would fit that requirement.
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(CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that dealing with
congestion is not always best done through tarmac? There
are tremendous opportunities in design, digital management,
road pricing and public transport.
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My Lords, I agree that there are many different ways in
which we can tackle congestion, including bypasses, link
roads, road widening and, as the noble Lord says, new smart
technology could help in this.
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(GP)
My Lords, I do not understand why the Government do not
have any sort of plan for traffic reduction. Every time you
build a road, you actually encourage traffic and create
more air pollution and more congestion. Why not reduce
traffic?
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We are looking to reduce congestion, but obviously people
still need to travel and to drive to work. More than 17
million people use the roads to commute to work, and I
think that we should encourage that.
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(Lab)
My Lords, the Centre for Cities, a think tank focused on the
economic benefits and development of cities, has recently
questioned the effectiveness of investment in roads as a
catalyst for local economic development in the light of the
evaluations that have been undertaken. It suggests that the
evidence is far from conclusive and comments that other ways
of investing money to reduce congestion could be more
effective. Can the Minister say what evaluations of the
impact of investment in local roads the Government are
relying on to show that such investment does represent value
for money in terms of reducing congestion and increasing
productivity in local areas, as compared with other ways of
investing the money to achieve the same objective? Will the
Government make those evaluations, on which presumably they
rely, publicly available, if they have not already done so?
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My Lords, I mentioned in my Answer to the original Question
that the average is a return of £4.50 for every £1 invested.
Our last evaluation, back in 2014, looked at how the
investment we are making benefits the economy. We are
carrying out a new study that will be available later this
year to ensure that we are spending money wisely.
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(Con)
My Lords, one of the main causes of traffic congestion in
towns seems to be when roads are dug up. Can my noble friend
the Minister comment on the success of efforts to get the
utilities to co-ordinate their digging-up-the-roads efforts?
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I agree with my noble friend. I believe that around 2.5
million roadworks are carried out in England each year, which
cost the economy around £4 billion. My noble friend has
rightly raised the lane rental schemes which we have been
trialling. They have encouraged the utilities to work
together at weekends and in the evenings in order to reduce
roadworks and therefore congestion. The schemes have been
successful and we have seen congestion in London and Kent cut
by around a half. At the end of last year we announced that
these schemes will continue after the trial period, and we
are consulting on extending the scheme nationwide to spread
their benefits to the rest of the country. We will publish
our response on that in the next few months.
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