Abingdon Lodge Hill Junction and Local Infrastructure

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Abingdon Lodge Hill junction and local infrastructure.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I start by sincerely thanking the Minister for coming today. I am delighted to have secured this debate, because Lodge Hill junction is infamous among local people in and around Abingdon, but I rather expect less so in Westminster. For the uninitiated, I will explain why this is important.

Lodge Hill junction is between Abingdon and Oxford on the A34. The A34 is part of the strategic road network; it connects Oxfordshire to both the south and the north. Currently, the junction only has north-facing slips. That means that all the traffic from the north of Abingdon wishing to travel south to places such as Didcot, Newbury and Southampton has to pass through the centre of the town to the next junction that has southern-facing slips.

For well over 30 years, local people and politicians have been calling for the completion of the junction with south-facing slips. In that time there have been many promises made and broken by Governments. Frankly, local residents have all but lost hope that this is going to be completed. However, I am confident that today we can give them some hope.

The issue is primarily to do with funding, but before we get to that, I will set out why the scheme is vital to Abingdon and its surrounding areas. Abingdon-on-Thames is a delightful town. It is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in England, with a charming town centre and river frontage. I would encourage anyone to visit, if they have not already done so. However, residents are plagued by the sheer volume of traffic clogging up the town’s central arteries.

Lifelong Abingdon resident, Jim, told me:

“Abingdon is at breaking point with traffic and it’s only going to get worse”.

Another resident, Victoria, said:

“The traffic in this town is out of control! It makes shopping in town very unpleasant at certain times and it’s difficult for elderly residents to safely cross the road. It puts people off coming into town!”

The air pollution can be dangerous when traffic along Stert Street or Ock Street becomes gridlocked. The solution is clear to everyone involved. As my constituent, David, put it:

“Anything that can be done to stop cars having to come through town in order to get to the A34 will make Abingdon a safer and more attractive town for residents, and therefore better for businesses."

The scheme will also help boost active travel. The one- way system is usually at standstill during rush hour, which does not make for a pleasant cycle or commute to school or work. Local resident, David, told me:

“We try to walk around town whenever possible but the atmosphere is unpleasant and unhealthy with stationary traffic and exhaust fumes.”

Another constituent, Mary, said:

“As a cyclist I feel that there are already far too many cars in Abingdon and it worries me that there will soon be even more.”

Supporting active travel is a key part of local Liberal Democrat policy for Oxfordshire. Our councillors have worked tirelessly to ensure that the plans for Lodge Hill include cycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. Less traffic flowing through the town centre will encourage more people to cycle and walk into the town, and the changes to the junction itself will improve connections with surrounding villages. I know that residents in Sunningwell and Kennington are concerned that the completion of the junction will lead to their roads becoming a rat run. I want to assure those residents that I am working with the county council to ensure that that does not happen.

The issue where Lodge Hill is absolutely critical is building. An unpopular local plan, adopted by the then Conservative-led district council in 2017, planned for 1,100 homes to be built in north and north-west Abingdon, with an additional development of 1,200 homes planned at Dalton Barracks. That was part of a wider plan to build 100,000 homes across Oxfordshire, which was pushed very hard by the Government. Local Liberal Democrats raised concerns at the time, and a major part of those concerns was that local infrastructure needed to be improved before the large housing developments were completed. That is what the Conservatives promised residents at the time, but sadly it was not delivered. After a huge community campaign, plans for the developments in north Abingdon included, on the planning application, a Grampian condition stating that no more than 400 homes could be occupied before this junction is improved.

The houses have started to go up. If people come to Abingdon, they will see that we have diggers everywhere. That is causing its own problems, but the houses are happening—they are coming. Residents in the area look on, and see more and more houses springing up and being occupied, but we are not seeing improvements to the infrastructure. Carol, who lives in north Abingdon, said:

“I am very much in favour of housing in my backyard but am worried there is…little in the way of infrastructure”.

I think she speaks for many. Another resident, Patricia, said:

“I did not think the noise and disruption would have begun so early and before the construction of the new slip road! As far as I understood the negotiation process, this was a condition of the ‘Deal’”.

Should the Lodge Hill scheme be delayed, the proposed development of 1,200 homes at Dalton Barracks would also be in trouble, and so would the other 700 homes proposed for Abingdon. That is 1,900 more homes in the local plan that are reliant on this scheme. The Minister knows very well what happens when we fail to meet targets set by local plans. I hope that, with her help today, we can avoid any more delay, because that is critical.

More important is the intense frustration felt by the whole community about the broken promise to deliver infrastructure ahead of the development. I do not blame residents for that frustration—frankly, I share it—because if we look at the history of the funding announcements in particular, it has been a story of overpromising and underdelivering. Back in 2017, the Government did commit £9.5 million of funding from what was then the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. At the time, and notwithstanding our wider concerns about infrastructure, I and my Lib Dem colleagues of course welcomed that commitment, but we expressed a level of scepticism about the funding materialising. The then Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council said in response:

“It won’t fall through. A lot of people are being very disingenuous saying that.”

But sadly we were right, and fall through it did.

Last year, the Department dropped the funding, apart from the £1.87 million that had already been spent. I nearly cried, because as soon as I was elected in 2017 I made it my top priority to help to deliver this scheme—it was in my maiden speech. Since then I have raised it in relation to countless issues—in debates on infrastructure and the Oxford to Cambridge expressway, in oral questions, in countless letters to many different Secretaries of State and in numerous written questions asking for updates and pressing for funding. I have attended every available ministerial surgery that I could, sent countless emails and had meetings with Highways England. I pressed, year on year, for Government to bring forth the money. I am sorry to say that, while I was doing that, the county council seemed to give up.

It took an historic change in Oxfordshire—May 2021 saw the Lib Dems at the helm of the county council—for the project to again become a priority locally. I am pleased to report that, in October 2022, thanks to the hard and persistent work of local Lib Dem councillors, a planning application for the scheme was submitted to the county council. A decision is expected in June this year—it is just a few weeks away. This is the furthest that Lodge Hill junction has ever progressed. In a recent meeting, county council leader Liz Leffman confirmed that the council is literally shovel-ready and raring to go, so if the rest of the funding is not secured by June, it will be the Government holding up the process, and I am confident that that is not what they want to do.

I will break this down. The scheme costs £33 million in total. Some £6.5 million of section 106 money from the developers is now secured. As I mentioned, we already had the £1.8 million-odd from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and that has been spent. We also have £12 million of funding allocated as part of the growth deal; that is theoretically in place, and I hope the Minister will release it to the county as soon as possible. But there remains a £13 million gap. The county council is in discussion with Homes England about unlocking that piece. I was disappointed to see in the response to my written questions this week that the Secretary of State has not engaged—yet—with Homes England on the issue. My ask of the Minister is to please help me do that, although if she could do it herself, that would be even better. Imagine—over 30 years of promises would be fulfilled if we delivered this.

It may feel like this is just a junction, but it is not; it has become an allegory of why we cannot trust Government to deliver for people. Today we have an opportunity to change that for thousands of people. This proposal has been talked about, cross-party, for years. Local people are tired of their voices being ignored, and frustrated at promises being broken, but the Minister can help to fix that today. It is high time that this Conservative Government listened to the people of Abingdon, made good on their promise to release the funding for Lodge Hill and delivered the infrastructure that will make the lives of the residents and businesses of England’s oldest town better.

11:11

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, and to listen to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) as she ably sets out her case on Lodge Hill junction. She has been an assiduous representative, and I am happy to work with her. I will set out the position, as she said, and provide a little more context.

I am grateful for the chance to talk about what the Government are doing to back these ambitions through significant funding for local leaders of all parties in Oxfordshire. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon sketched out a little of the landscape and the political colours involved, and it is fair to say that everybody needs to work together in these times to deliver these significant infrastructure projects, which have such a huge impact on her constituents. The Government stand firmly behind local leaders, in Oxfordshire and elsewhere, through upcoming measures such as legislative changes supporting sustainable housing growth.

I think the hon. Lady started from 30 years ago, but I will not go quite that far back—I will go back just to 2017. Oxfordshire has long been pivotal to the UK economy, with nationally significant assets and world-leading strengths in science and innovation. That was underlined by the critical role played by its university and research facilities in the development of the covid-19 vaccine. Its success is central to cementing our whole country’s reputation as a science superpower, which is one of the Prime Minister’s key priorities, and our wider ambitions to level up innovation and opportunity throughout the country.

We agree with the hon. Member that a lack of affordable housing could make it harder for the area to attract and retain talent when competing in a global market. That is why the Government have gone to such lengths to drive housing and growth in Oxfordshire. In March 2017, the Government agreed a £215 million housing and growth deal with Oxfordshire councils to deliver 100,000 homes, including more affordable housing, as well as infrastructure improvements to support sustainable development across the county. That underlines our commitment to championing local leaders, who are rightly elected to represent their local communities and dedicated to tackling the challenges facing their areas. It is right to put those local communities in the driving seat when it comes to making decisions about how best to allocate taxpayer resources that have been allocated to them from central Government.

That deal is just the start. Oxfordshire is also benefiting from £107 million of housing infrastructure funding for the A40 smart corridor scheme and £35 million of local growth funding for the Oxford science transit project, which will unlock substantial infrastructure investment along the key corridor west of Oxford. I do not think anybody can claim that this Government are not backing Oxford’s ambitions for its local economy.

I will turn specifically to the Lodge Hill junction, which the hon. Lady discussed in a lot of detail. She is absolutely right to highlight the concerns of local residents, who rightly want to see infrastructure delivered. In the main, they do support housing, because they understand the need for it, but they make the case every time that the infrastructure must be there. That is also the position of the Government. The project that the hon. Lady talked about is to deliver an upgraded interchange on the A34 trunk road north of Abingdon-on-Thames—a new, grade-separated dumb-bell junction. I am not a transport expert, but I am sure people listening to the debate will know exactly what I mean when I say that. It is a junction over the A34 on the A4183 Oxford Road, with new south-facing slip roads on and off the A34. That is required, along with pedestrian, cycle and traffic-calming works and a lay-by on the A34.

The existing Lodge Hill junction provides northbound on-slip and southbound off-slip only, which means that all residents of north Abingdon who commute to and from major employment centres including Didcot, Milton Park science and technology park, and Harwell science and innovation campus, or to the M4 and beyond, travel through Abingdon’s historic town centre to the Marcham interchange to the south to access the A34, causing congestion and delay. I understand the frustration of the hon. Lady’s residents, which she has described.

This long-standing strategic highway project has been included in successive local transport plans and is supported by Vale of White Horse District Council. The responsibility for delivering the scheme lies with Oxfordshire County Council, subject to technical approval from National Highways. Oxfordshire County Council—as you might be aware, Ms McVey, and as I understand it—is run by a coalition involving a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Green party.

In autumn 2022, my Department asked Homes England to explore whether the funding shortfall that had emerged could be funded from the brownfield, infrastructure and land fund. The latest is that the business case for that brownfield, infrastructure and land fund programme is expected to be submitted shortly to the Treasury for final approval.

It is right to pause for a second to reflect on what we are talking about. May I gently correct the hon. Lady? This is not a question of the Government blocking funding. Funding is required beyond the initial business case. That needs to be met from somewhere, and we all understand, as we have seen it across the country, that sometimes infrastructure projects are delayed for covid or other reasons, and costs go up. When that happens, naturally, and as we would expect, a responsible Government and a responsible Department must undertake discussions around the business case. After all, we are talking about taxpayers’ money.

If we were to find a shortfall for a project in the hon. Lady’s area, the money would have to be taken from a project somewhere else. No doubt the residents of that area would ask why £13 million, or whatever the figure, had been taken from their project, which they, too, desperately needed, and been allocated to a project in the hon. Lady’s area. It is right that the Treasury and the Government take a responsible view.

Those discussions are taking place and, as I understand it, there are cost estimates in the project plan. I am happy to have further meetings with the hon. Lady on that point because I understand that there is an awful lot of detail involved and it is not possible for us to get into it here. We do not have the time to consider the detail of a project of such long standing.

The hon. Lady referred to Homes England, which is continuing to engage with Oxfordshire County Council and Vale of White Horse District Council to achieve some of the clarifications required to develop the business case. That involves, as I think she said, agreeing an approach to grant recovery via developer contributions and clarifying other elements of the scheme.

The hon. Lady is right to point to the link with the housing project, because the funding for the junction unlocks further funding for the houses that are required to be built. There are wider transport and economic benefits, and we do not want much-needed future housing to be blocked for any reason, least of all with respect to important transport infrastructure.

I will draw my remarks to a close unless the hon. Lady wants further clarification in the time remaining.

[Layla Moran]

indicated dissent.

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady is indicating that she does not seek further clarification. Therefore, I thank her once again.

I am happy to have a meeting in the Department with the relevant people so we can see what else we can do. I would encourage the hon. Lady to work with her local partners—lots of local authorities are involved in this process—because they bear a responsibility to do their part and to get the much-needed business cases in place so we can all work collaboratively.

Question put and agreed to.

11:19

Sitting suspended.