Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of Schedule 17 applications submitted by High Speed 2 Limited have been (a) refused or (b) modified by the relevant planning authority.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To date 407 Schedule 17 applications have been made by HS2 Ltd, of which nine (2.2%) have been refused by the relevant local planning authority. This does not include applications where the local authority has failed to determine an application within the specified timescale, or extended determination timescales agreed with HS2 Ltd, resulting in HS2 Ltd submitting an appeal to the Secretaries of State in order to maintain the programme.
Applications can be modified in a variety of ways. Local planning authorities may place conditions on an approval. Alternatively, pre-application discussions in advance of formal Schedule 17 applications being submitted, often result in a design being modified or adapted through direct requests from local authority officers, or due to questions or concerns being raised.
Asked by: Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the level of support provided by the Government to local authorities for road surfacing in each of the last five years.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
During the last five years the Department for Transport has provided over £5.9 billion by formula to local authorities in England, outside London, to support the maintenance of the local road network.
This funding is not ring-fenced, allowing local highway authorities to spend their allocations according to their own priorities.