Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

As was made clear at the time, reclassification does not guarantee any extra funding, and any proposed upgrade would need to be subject to the usual decision-making process.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of road capacity in north-west England.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Simon Burns)]

The Department has not undertaken any recent assessment of road capacity in north-west England. Since 2010, however, the Highways Agency has completed two annual assessments of the operation of all its strategic routes in the north of England in terms of delay, journey reliability, capacity, accidents and some environmental measures. The next assessment is due in spring next year.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The Minister’s colleagues are aware that the roads in the Longdendale area of my constituency suffer from severe congestion—one Minister courteously took the time to visit, and the Secretary of State represents a seat not too far away. Since that last ministerial visit, the hon. Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) and I have worked with local authorities in Tameside, High Peak, Derbyshire and Barnsley to try to work out a solution that will cover the whole corridor between Greater Manchester and south Yorkshire. There has been a lot of interest in the study and we have published an interim report. Will the Minister grant us a meeting to take that work further?

[Mr Burns]

As the hon. Gentleman rightly recognises, the scheme in the national programme was withdrawn in 2009 by the Labour Government. A considerable amount of work has been done since at a local level. Because I have considerable sympathy for areas where there is significant road congestion, and although there must now be a local approach to finding a solution, I or one of my ministerial colleagues would be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) if they would like to discuss the matter further.