Avon Ring Road (M4 Link)

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the M4 link to the Avon ring road.

I rise to make the case for what I believe to be the most important road infrastructure project in my constituency, which could benefit not only my constituents in Kingswood but the whole city of Bristol and the surrounding region of south Gloucestershire. As the local MP, I believe that we desperately need a new junction on the M4 motorway to link to the Avon ring road, which runs through my constituency.

I appreciate that the Minister is new to his post, and I welcome him to the Department. I am sure that he has already received many representations from people calling for roads to be built, extended or dualled, but I believe that the case for an M4 link to the Avon ring road should be considered as a priority for the Department and the Government. Local people in eastern Bristol have the limited choice of accessing the M4 at junction 19, which is the junction with the M32, or at junction 18, which is the turn-off for Bath.

For hundreds of my constituents who journey along the M4 daily to work, the situation proves to be a commuter’s nightmare. Those who want to access the motorway are forced to travel up the Avon ring road past the Hambrook lights at Frenchay and access the M32, which takes them on to the M4 at junction 19. The frustration of commuters wishing to take the M4 eastbound, who wait in the traffic that builds up on the ring road at Emersons Green—not helped by the 2-plus lane—is hardly improved by the fact that they can almost hear the sound of the vehicles on the M4, because the motorway at that point is less than a stone’s throw from the ring road.

If we look at a map, we see that the Avon ring road, the A4174 and the M4 run so close together in parallel that we could be forgiven for thinking that they are adjoining carriageways on some sort of superhighway. At the Wick Wick roundabout or the Westerleigh Road roundabout on the ring road, where access points already exist and bridges cross the M4, the motorway lies tantalisingly close, but motorists have no other option than to wait patiently in a queue that stretches for miles along the ring road, and then to travel—against their instincts and better judgment—in the opposite direction for three miles before turning back on themselves. In the end—after a wait of, at times, an hour—a commuter will join the M4 at junction 19 and travel back past Emersons Green, where they started.

Understandably, such delays leave my constituents furious. The delays and the ensuing congestion result from the fact that the only way to access the M4 from the eastern side of Bristol is at junction 19. That has caused the M32 to become a pinch point on the M4, which is struggling to cope with the rising volume of commuters. With the development of new housing at Lyde Green, next to Emersons Green, and the planned housing at Filton, the Bristol area is set to expand significantly.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I commend him on a brilliant campaign. Does he agree that although we want to unleash enterprise and create more jobs, and new housing is much needed, we have to have the infrastructure in place to support it?

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his comments. He has led the way in developing a suitable mix of housing and employment land at the proposed housing estate at Filton airfield. He is absolutely right that we may have employment, land and housing, but we need transport infrastructure in eastern and northern Bristol to ensure that the city can expand appropriately and to reduce congestion. With thousands of extra cars on the roads, there will remain only one access point to the M4. The time has come to provide a solution by delivering a new junction, junction 18A, at Emersons Green. With the M4 and the Avon ring road effectively touching, the project would be moderate on the scale of other Members’ requests. A new junction would link with the Avon ring road, providing instant and improved access to the M4 for the eastern side of Bristol, thereby reducing congestion on the M32 and at junction 19.

Junction 18A is such an obvious, and some might say easy, solution that the Minister may wonder why it has not been thought of before. Well, it has: the scheme was first proposed back in 1985—I was four years old—when plans for the Avon ring road were being developed. The junction and link road were given the go-ahead, but they were never built. The blame lies with the local authority of the time, which apparently spent the non-ring-fenced money elsewhere. What may have happened decades ago in the 20th century, however, should not cloud the fact that, as we approach the third decade of the 21st century, Bristol and its surrounding region urgently need a new link road to the M4.

I am determined to press the case for what is known locally as the “M4 link”, as I have done repeatedly over the past five years since becoming the MP for Kingswood. I held a debate in Parliament on this issue back in May 2011, and in April 2012 I handed in a petition of more than 1,500 local residents supporting the M4 link. I put on record my appreciation for the determination of local councillors such as Colin Hunt, James Hunt, Rachael Hunt and Dave Kearns to keep fighting locally for an M4 link, which has resulted in South Gloucestershire Council commissioning a feasibility study into the junction that will report later in the year.

Only last year, in July 2014, I met the Minister with responsibility for roads, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), at the Department to make the case for a new junction and link road. On 25 March 2015, during the final Prime Minister’s questions of the Parliament, I raised the case for an M4 link with the Prime Minister himself. He responded by stating that the Secretary of State for Transport would be pleased to receive representations. I was delighted that, in April, the Transport Secretary was able to visit the proposed site of the M4 link and to listen to local businesses and councillors making the case for a new junction and link road.

Since then, the campaign for an M4 link has, pardon the pun, stepped up a gear, with the launch of a new cross-party campaign, Gateway2Growth. Several representatives of the campaign are in the Public Gallery today, and they are calling for junction 18A to be built at Emersons Green. The campaign includes the Bristol and Bath science park and Business West, which represents 18,000 businesses across the south-west, and its purpose is not only to highlight the transport and congestion need for an M4 link but to make the overwhelming economic case for a new junction. Above all, a new junction would help to put the thriving community of Emersons Green on the map.

Emersons Green is a success story in the making. It is the location of one of south Gloucestershire’s largest ever housing developments. A consortium of developers is currently working to deliver 2,500 new homes, schools and community and leisure facilities at Lyde Green, and some 2,800 homes have been built at Emersons Green West since the late 1990s. The area is currently home to the Bristol and Bath science park, Airbus, the Harlequin business park and the National Composites Centre, and it has the potential to grow even further. The area contains a flagship employment site for the west of England, which was recognised by the Government in the establishment of the Emersons Green enterprise area. There is the potential for developing 45 hectares of employment space, which would provide economic growth for the creation of some 7,000 new jobs. At the heart of that employment site is the Bristol and Bath science park, which is home to more than 40 successful businesses and is a crucial hub for young and emerging science and technology companies to grow and thrive. One of the park’s success stories has been the National Composites Centre, which has become an internationally renowned asset for the delivery of world-class design and rapid manufacture for sectors including aerospace, automotive and heavy infrastructure.

It is vital, therefore, that the surrounding infrastructure matches the area’s ambition so that it is able to reflect the present day Emersons Green while also being able to cater for future demands. A new junction 18A at Emersons Green, providing access to the M4, would help to turbocharge economic growth in the area. Back in 2006, the Bristol transport study estimated that a junction would provide an economic benefit of around £270 million; I believe that figure would be far higher today. In order to understand more fully the economic benefits of the proposed junction, the Gateway2Growth campaign has commissioned an independent study exploring the business benefits of junction 18A. The study will be conducted by Dr Phil Tomlinson, senior lecturer in business economics, and Marc Betton, PhD researcher, from the University of Bath. The comprehensive report will have its national launch at the House of Commons on 16 September, which will be attended by local MPs, councillors, business leaders, academics and residents. I personally invite the Minister and his departmental officials to attend the launch so that they can hear for themselves the economic benefits of the proposed junction 18A and M4 link. I request that the Department seriously and urgently considers the case for junction 18A as part of any future Government transport infrastructure commitments.

The phrase “long-term economic plan” could have been designed with the lengthy campaign for an M4 link in mind—the campaign has certainly been extremely long term. However, I assure the Minister that my resolve, and the resolve of local businesses, the Gateway2Growth campaign, local MPs—including my hon. Friends the Members for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) and for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall)—and the people of Kingswood and the surrounding area, is to argue that the case for a new junction has not diminished, nor will it. The case for the M4 link has never been stronger and, with the foundation of the Gateway2Growth campaign, never has our local area been so united behind the common ambition of delivering better road infrastructure for the Bristol area.