Mr. Malcolm
Moss
(North-East Cambridgeshire): I shall address the House on
the A47 Thorney bypass,
which was one of the casualties of the Government's decision to
slash their road building programme from 160 schemes to about
37. The White Paper "A New Deal for Transport: Better for
Everyone" proposed massive changes to the road building
programme. That proposal certainly did not make things better
for my constituents in Thorney
and the community is extremely angry.
I attended a public meeting last
November, which was packed to the gunwales. There are about
2,000 souls in the village and I should think that every one was
present. They are determined that the long-promised bypass
will go ahead in the near future--and as soon as possible. The
villagers set up the Bypass
Thorney campaign
and, such has been the strength of feeling, they have already
held two rallies on the A47 in the village in which traffic was
held up for a considerable time. They of course have the full
co-operation of the police and the local authority.
The campaign for a Thorney
bypass has a long
and chequered history. The villagers have been campaigning for
their bypass for
67 years. A campaign started in 1932 and a great Isle of Ely
route was proposed to improve the A47 across the fens from
Peterborough to King's Lynn, and on to Norwich. Plans were
resurrected in the 1960s and published in 1962. A start date was
confirmed in 1968. In the 1980s, a public consultation
determined that a single carriageway should be routed north of
the village and a start was planned for 1986.
In June 1987, the bypass
was again confirmed, on environmental grounds, by the then
Under-Secretary of State for Transport with a planned start date
of1989-91. The plan for a bypass
was changed to one for a dual carriageway in 1990 and a start
date of within two years was confirmed. In 1994, the Department
inexplicably decided to test Thorney
for trunk road traffic calming measures. I think that Thorney
was one of three projects on which the Government decided at
that stage, and I shall discuss traffic calming a little later.
The fear at that time, which I
shared, was that traffic calming measures in the village were a
way round going ahead with the bypass,
and an attempt to alleviate some of the problems of delay and
the high accident rate. In 1996, the programme was changed and
the bypass was put
into the second phase, but the real body blow came in 1998, when
the present Government dropped the Thorney
bypass from the
road development programme.
Thorney
is a heritage village. Its centre is a conservation area with
167 listed buildings, 116 of which front on to the A47. The road
bisects the village, which is linear, right the way
through. Most residents are affected by the heavy traffic. The
village is built on fenland soil, which is part peat and part
silt, and the vibrations from the increasing traffic cause
significant problems for buildings.
The village's terrific tourist
potential is not in any way realised because of the problems of
pollution and traffic. The traffic problem is essentially that
16,000-plus vehicles a day go through this small fenland
village, and 19 per cent. of those are heavy goods vehicles.
They cause severance to the village, because the road bisects
the built-up area, and create noise and pollution. Even though
traffic calming measures have been taken, delays are caused.
Traffic does not go through the
village only during the day. The campaign team recently carried
out a survey which found that a massive number of HGVs go
through all night and, between midnight and 6 am, the HGV count
was much higher, at 57 per cent. The village also suffers from
traffic going through its centre seven days a week. There is
additional holiday traffic at weekends as people go from the
midlands to the north Norfolk coast.
The village is bisected by the road.
There are two zebra crossings--one at each end of the
village--but, during peak times, no one in his right mind would
risk crossing that road. It is so dangerous that parents
invariably take their children to the school, which is on the
road by one of the zebra crossings. However, they take their
children to school by car, because there have been accidents
involving children, particularly those on bicycles, over the
past 10 years or so.
Traffic calming measures are causing
more problems for residents. The clatter of HGVs going over the
humps and bumps and round the chicanes has exacerbated the noise
and pollution problem that they were designed to solve. Those
measures have caused delays, which add to the problems of the
environment and cost.
Even the Government office of the
east, which is based in Cambridge, has concluded that there are
great merits in the 1996 scheme for a dual carriageway of 4.3
km, which cost about £15 million at that time. The Government
office has also concluded that the accident rates in Thorney
are higher than average, with clusters on bends in the road and
at minor junctions, and that the traffic calming measures, which
were installed in 1994 at a cost of almost £500,000, have not
overcome the basic problems. Thorney's rural location means that
public transport is not only unlikely to be provided, but would
not in any way provide a solution to the problems.
The figure obtained by the cost
benefit analysis is comparatively low at 2.3, but that is for a
dual carriageway. The figure would probably double if the
Government pursued their proposals for a single carriageway.
Along with the villagers, I shall press for the road to become a
single carriageway, in which event the figure would probably be
nearer 5.
The villagers of Thorney
would want me to put another point to the Government. I believe
that every other village on the A47 has been bypassed,
all the way from the midlands around Peterborough, across the
fens and around Wisbech, King's Lynn and the stretch leading to
Norfolk. Why, after all this time, is Thorney
the only community that has to suffer such heavy traffic at its
heart?
GOE believes that an improvement in
the road--even a bypass
for Thorney--would
help to regenerate the northern fens area. Wisbech currently
enjoys assisted area status, as it has since
1993--although that is being reviewed--and is at the heart of an
objective 5b area, while much of the northern fens region has
rural development status.
What is the way forward? The Bypass
Thorney campaign
submitted its proposals to the panel at the public examination
of the draft regional planning guidance for East Anglia earlier
this year. I am told by Lord Whitty, the Minister responsible
for trunk roads, that the panel's report is due in mid-May. At
that point, the Secretary of State will have the power either to
accept the report or to modify its conclusions, but, in any
event, he will have to consult those involved.
My constituents and I want the
go-ahead to be given for the reintroduction of this much-needed bypass
into the programme as a single carriageway. For all the reasons
that I have given, we believe that the community needs and
deserves the bypass.
Other communities may not want improved roads--although I
suspect that they are far fewer that the Government would have
us believe--but this community does. The campaign will not go
away: these people are serious, and they will continue to
blockade the A47 for as long as it takes to make the Government
see reason.
Thorney Bypass Petition
Mr. Malcolm
Moss
(North-East Cambridgeshire): It is my privilege, as the hon.
Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, to present this petition
on behalf of the residents of the village of Thorney in my
constituency regarding their campaign to reinstate a bypass for
their village. The bypass was in the previous Government's road
programme but was removed from the programme by the incoming
Labour Government.
The petitioners, therefore, request the
House of Commons to urge the Secretary of State for the
Environment, Transport and the Regions to consider
reinstating the A47 Thorney Bypass into the Government's
road building programme with immediate effect.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound,
will ever pray.