Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the HM Treasury
Transport in the South-East
Jim Shannon Excerpts(1 day, 13 hours ago)
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Jess Brown-Fuller
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that he is much closer to the Government than I am and has a brilliant opportunity to have his concerns heard by the Minister. He is right to raise the nonsense of having to go in and then out of London to reach vital pieces of infrastructure.
I am sure many hon. Members across the House will wax lyrical about their transport woes today, but it will come as no surprise that the focus of my contribution will be the impact that poor transport infrastructure has on my constituency. The Minister knows that the A27 is one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK and the main arterial route for those travelling down to the coast all the way from Wiltshire in the west to East Sussex.
Months ago, I invited the Transport Secretary during Transport questions, to come and sit in traffic with me, and I have no idea why she declined. My point was that it did not matter when she came—what time of day or day of the week—I could guarantee we would be caught in congestion. The Transport Secretary did offer me a meeting with the Roads Minister, the hon. Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood). I am grateful to him for sitting down with me so that I could explain the issue in more detail. If I were to pull up Apple Maps or Google Maps at this exact moment, there will almost certainly be a red ring round my city with traffic at a standstill.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this forward. I find myself in a similar, frustrating circumstance to the one she indicates. In my case, it is the proposed Ballynahinch bypass, which would breathe new life into the town. Like the project mentioned by hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), it has been postponed repeatedly since I was first elected in 2010. Does the hon. Lady agree that infrastructure projects, such as she seeks for her constituency, will have major local effects, boost the economy, clear up long waits in traffic and create jobs? They must never be relegated to a dusty shelf where they have clearly been for the last few years.
Jess Brown-Fuller
It is almost as though the hon. Gentleman has read my speech in advance. I will go on to a lot of the things he has just raised. If it is bad today in my constituency, it is hard to imagine how much worse it is on a sunny day, when tourists for the Witterings queue for miles to reach our lovely sandy beach or Goodwood hosts an event that attracts visitors in their thousands.