Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trees Network Rail plans to fell as part of its lineside tree felling programme up to the expected conclusion of that programme in 2024.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Network Rail does not have a dedicated lineside tree felling programme.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trees Network Rail are planning to replant to replace the loss of biodiversity resulting from its lineside tree felling programme.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Network Rail does not have a lineside tree felling programme. While Network Rail has carried out replanting, where appropriate, on individual projects, it does not hold central data on the number of trees replanted across its estate.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessments Network Rail carry out to classify a lineside tree as safety critical.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Network Rail’s lineside engineers and surveyors consider a range of factors as part of their routine assessment of lineside trees, and whether these are considered safety critical or not. In the last year, there were more than a thousand incidents where trees caused disruption to the network, which in some cases resulted in injuries among train drivers and members of the public. Factors include the condition of the trees themselves, any identifiable hazards to oncoming trains and the safety risks associated with leaves on the line. This is in accordance with Network Rail’s own standards for vegetation management, which is based on existing forestry and environmental legislation.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the independent review of Network Rail’s lineside vegetation management, published in November 2018, for what reasons Network Rail has felled trees during the nesting season.
Answered by Andrew Jones
Network Rail has a statutory duty to ensure that the railways remain safe throughout the year, and are therefore expected to intervene to address imminent safety risks or hazards that present themselves at the lineside, whenever this may be the case. As part of fulfilling this duty, Network Rail work with independent ecologists and arborists to identify nesting birds and protected species before commissioning any devegetation work, so that appropriate mitigation can be put in place to protect them and minimise disturbance.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many Coastguard Rescue Officers are available for service in each Coastguard station along the Ceredigion coast; and what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of those numbers.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
There are six Coastguard Rescue Teams (CRTs) along the Ceredigion coast with 45 volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officers (CROs) currently available for service. The number in each team is shown below:
Location of CRT | CROs available |
Cardigan | 8 |
Gwbert | 3 |
New Quay | 8 |
Aberystwyth | 9 |
Borth | 8 |
Aberdyfi | 9 |
Her Majesty’s Coastguard continually monitors the number of available CROs. They are all volunteers and as such there is no mutuality of obligation so their availability can vary throughout any specified period. During an incident the Search Mission Co-ordinator monitors the response levels and if further CROs are required to attend the incident then they will task the flank CRTs.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to close the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency office on (a) Longview Road, Swansea, (b) Upper Forest Way, Swansea and (c) the Trinity House office at Kings Dock, Swansea.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
There are no plans to close the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s offices at either Longview Road or Upper Forest Way in Swansea. These remain in the DVLA’s long term estates strategy. The property at Trinity House, Kings Dock is not part of the DVLA estate.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the restrictions on newly-qualified drivers in Northern Ireland on road safety in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
There is evidence from countries in which a system of Graduated Driving Licences (GDL) has been implemented to suggest that it can have a beneficial effect on road safety.
The Department has decided to use the introduction of GDL in Northern Ireland as a pilot, to gather evidence on the potential for GDL in Great Britain. Officials from the Department and Northern Ireland are currently discussing how to take this work forward.
More widely, the Department is making good progress against an ambitious range of measures to enhance the safety of UK road users as set out in its 2015 Road Safety statement. This includes the doubling of penalty points for motorists using a phone whilst driving, which means that new drivers, within 2 years of passing their test, risk having their licence revoked if caught.