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Written Question
A16: Lincolnshire
Tuesday 26th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve safety on the A16 in Lincolnshire.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The A16 is the responsibility of local highway authorities – in this case, Lincolnshire County Council through South Holland and The Deepings. It is for those authorities to assess the benefits of improvements to areas of their networks, and to seek funding, if required.

Almost £20 million from the Levelling Up Fund has been allocated to improve the A16 corridor between Boston and Spalding, and Lincolnshire County Council has recently been allocated just over £262 million from the Local Transport Fund to improve the connections that people rely on every day.


Written Question
Roads: Lincolnshire
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much reallocated HS2 funding has been given to Lincolnshire County Council for road resurfacing.

Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

Lincolnshire County Council will receive a minimum additional overall uplift of £287.7 million between 2023-24 and 2033-34 as a result of reallocating HS2 funding. £4.9 million of this has already been paid out in the current financial year with a further £4.9 million to follow in 2024/25, and Lincolnshire is receiving around 30% more capital funding for highway maintenance in the current financial year than it did in the previous financial year.

Funding allocations beyond 2024/25 are a matter for the next Spending Review.


Written Question
East Midlands Railway: Standards
Wednesday 20th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of East Midlands Railways trains from (a) Peterborough to Spalding and (b) Spalding to Peterborough were (i) cancelled and (ii) delayed by more than 30 minutes in 2023.

Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

Following a thorough search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the specific information you requested is not held by this Department.

The Office of Rail and Road publish statistics on passenger rail punctuality and reliability broken down by Train Operating Company. However, these statistics are not available for specific train services.


Written Question
Bus Services: Lincolnshire
Thursday 7th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to (a) maintain and (b) improve rural bus services in (i) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (ii) Lincolnshire.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

In England, the majority of bus services outside London operate on a commercial basis. Where commercial service provision is insufficient to meet the needs of local communities, local authorities can subsidise bus services where this represents value for money. This ensures that service provision is aligned with local needs.

The Government recognises the importance of local bus services to ensuring communities can stay connected, including in rural areas, and has announced over £4.5 billion to support and improve bus services since 2020.

The over £4.5 billion includes:

o £2bn pandemic funding between March 2020 and June 2023, followed by £300m in further service support until April 2025 (of which £160m is BSIP+ (not included in the £2bn BSIP funding below) and £140m is BSOG+ funding);

o £2bn Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding, including £1bn for LTAs in the North and the Midlands recently reallocated from HS2 (of which we have already announced allocations for the first £150m in 2024/25 and allocations for 25/26 onwards will be published in due course);

o Nearly £600m of funding for the £2 fare cap until the end of 2024.

From the Bus Service Improvement Plan funding, Lincolnshire County Council has been allocated over £8.5 million so far. The Department’s guidance to local authorities on developing their BSIPs explains that these must cover their full area and all local bus services within it. This funding should, therefore, benefit services in South Holland and the Deepings.

The Government also makes over £200 million available to bus operators every year through the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) to help them maintain their network. A further £42 million in BSOG funding is provided directly to local authorities to help subsidise socially necessary bus services that might otherwise be commercially unviable, helping to support rural bus routes. Lincolnshire County Council receives £535,302 of this funding every year.

The Government is also providing £20 million through the Rural Mobility Fund in England to trial 16 innovative demand responsive minibus services to better understand the challenges associated with introducing bookable bus services in rural and suburban settings.


Written Question
Transport: Lincolnshire
Wednesday 6th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what grants were provided by his Department to (a) South Holland District Council and (b) South Kesteven District Council in (i) 2022-23 and (ii) 2023-24; and how much was awarded in each grant.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Across financial years (FY) 2022-23 and FY 2023-24, South Holland District Council were awarded £67,500 On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) grant funding for the installation of 9 public electric vehicle charging devices. £50,625 (75%) of this grant was paid to the council in FY 2022-23 and the remaining £16,875 (25%) was paid in FY 2023-24.

In addition to this, Breckland and South Holland District Councils, under a previous joint working agreement, were awarded £39,500 for the installation of 6 public charging devices. This grant was paid in full to South Holland District Council in FY 2022-23.

South Kesteven District Council were not awarded any grant funding from the Department for Transport in FY 2022-23 or FY 2023-24.


Written Question
Railways: Peterborough
Monday 4th March 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of London North Eastern trains from (a) Peterborough to London and (b) London to Peterborough were (i) cancelled and (ii) delayed by more than 30 minutes in 2023.

Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

London North Eastern Railway (LNER) cancelled a total of 1,151 services on the day of travel between Peterborough and London between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. This equates to 3.7 per cent of their services between these stations. Over the same time period, 926 LNER services between London and Peterborough were delayed by over 30 minutes. This equates to 3 per cent of LNER services between London and Peterborough. A significant proportion of the cancellations and delays were due to flooding from named storms and infrastructure failures.


Written Question
Department for Transport: Translation Services
Tuesday 27th February 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much his Department spent on translation services from English to (a) Urdu, (b) Polish, (c) Panjabi and (d) Arabic in the last five years.

Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department for Transport does not centrally hold the cost and spend for translation services. We do use translation services on occasion and where necessary, however we do not record these broken down by language.


Written Question
Roads: Lincolnshire
Tuesday 13th February 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding his Department allocated to Lincolnshire County Council for road repairs in each year since 2015.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department has allocated a total of £358.9 million capital grant funding through formula to Lincolnshire County Council for highway maintenance for the financial years 2015/16 to 2023/24.

This consists of £246.4 million for the Highways Maintenance Block (needs and incentive elements), £83.6 million for Pothole Action Fund, Potholes Fund, and Wet Weather Fund, £20.6 million from Budget top ups, and £4.9 million from the redirected HS2 funding as part of Network North.

A table with this breakdown can be found below:

Year

Highway Maintenance Block (£m)

Additional Pothole and Wet Weather funding (£m)

Budget Top Ups (£m)

Network North (£m)

Total (£m)

2015/16

31.013

31.013

2016/17

30.169

1.804

31.973

2017/18

30.223

5.903

36.126

2018/19

30.193

1.772

13.747

45.712

2019/20

30.152

1.642

31.794

2020/21

30.152

20.909

54.373

2021/22

21.513

17.210

38.723

2022/23

21.513

17.210

38.723

2023/24

21.513

17.210

6.884

4.924

50.531

In addition to capital grant allocation formula funding, in February 2020 Lincolnshire County Council was awarded £3.65 million from the Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund towards resurfacing the A52 Roman Bank.


Written Question
Roads: Hedgehogs
Friday 9th February 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to help reduce hedgehog casualties on roads.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department recently delivered an authorisation to all local authorities to make it easier for them to install small animal warning signs. The purpose of this sign is primarily to improve road safety, but it may also help to reduce hedgehog and other small animal casualties on the road.


Written Question
Railway Stations: Visual Impairment
Monday 22nd January 2024

Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many railway stations in England have tactile paving on platforms to help visually impaired people.

Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

In England, 1,825 main line stations have full or partial tactile paving at platform edges. We have made £75m available to Network Rail to install platform edge tactiles at all main line stations across Great Britain that do not already have them, or where they are not due to be installed by another workstream. When the programme started in July 2021, 710 stations in England did not have tactiles installed on some or all platforms. Since July 2021, tactiles have been installed at more than 550 stations, with the remainder within the programme due to complete by 2025.