Transport (CSR)

Debate between Steve Baker and Barbara Keeley

Thursday 25th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Gray, to serve under your chairmanship in this debate on transport and the impact of the comprehensive spending review. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on the excellent way in which she opened the debate.

I want to talk about the proposals made by the Highways Agency to add an additional lane to the M60 between junctions 12 and 15 near Worsley. The decision announced in the spending review to go ahead with that scheme is wrong because it is not a safe option, it will damage the quality of life of my constituents and it does not represent value for money. By going ahead with the scheme in the current restrained financial climate, the Government are opting for what was described by Highways Agency officials at a residents’ meeting as a “cheap and cheerful option,” rather than making a proper assessment of the causes of the congestion that the additional lane scheme purports to solve.

There are several reasons why the scheme will not improve that stretch of the M60 for motorists. It will also create many issues that will affect my constituents’ quality of life. First, the additional lane will not be effective in relieving the congestion on the M60 at peak times. The current congestion is caused not simply by a lack of capacity but by the number and poor design of the junctions in the affected area. On that short stretch of motorway, the M60 interfaces with the M602, the M62 and the A580 East Lancashire road. Traffic on the motorway has to slow down significantly as other traffic weaves across lanes to enter or exit at the junctions. The distance between junctions 12 and 13 is less than half a mile, and on that short stretch, motorists heading into Manchester city centre and or to the busy Trafford centre nearby must cut across each other to get to the right part of the motorway.

Secondly, I believe that the plan itself will put motorists at serious risk. That stretch of the M60 is already dangerous—I will give some statistics later—given the number of closely spaced junctions and the prevalence of heavy goods traffic heading to Manchester city centre and the nearby Trafford Park industrial estate. In fact, the number of large lorries is already set to increase because Peel Holdings, a local firm, has been given the go-ahead to build a large traffic venture called Port Salford at Barton in my constituency. The Highways Agency’s proposals will make that stretch of motorway more dangerous still, because the additional lanes scheme will create four much narrower lanes with no hard shoulder. My constituents are very worried about that. As one wrote to me:

“There is very little margin for error when driving alongside a huge transcontinental lorry. What will it be like with narrower lanes?”

Thirdly, the Highways Agency has failed dismally to take into account the views of local residents on the proposals. The M60 passes extremely close to the homes of my constituents in Worsley, Roe Green and Barton, and even minor motorway works or changes in patterns of traffic can have a major impact on their lives. That stretch of road was not originally a motorway, or even an outer ring road. It started as the Stretford bypass, but residents now have a three-lane motorway, with the threat that it will become a four-lane motorway. Something that starts as a bypass should not end up as a four-lane motorway without much consideration being given to how it will affect local people’s lives.

[Steve Baker]

In my constituency, Wycombe, the M40 had similar beginnings, so I recognise the hon. Lady’s point. Noise is a dreadful problem for my constituents who live along the motorway. Is noise also a problem in the case she describes?

[Barbara Keeley]

I will come on to that point later, but it is difficult to see how any motorway, with increasingly heavy traffic thundering by at various times of the day, can be anything but noisy, so I sympathise with that problem.

The initial consultation run by the Highways Agency was dreadful. Having heard nothing at all about the scheme as the local MP, I received a leaflet on a Wednesday informing me that the consultation was due to start on Thursday and would run only until Saturday morning. Most of that short consultation time was during the working day, and across just two days, so most local people could not attend. Hardly any of the residents affected heard about the consultation or were able to attend at such short notice, and there are around 800 households right next to the motorway. Indeed, the few people who were able to attend were shocked to discover, having talked with the engineers present, that the project would entail significant work to move service cables and take the traffic physically closer to their homes and gardens.

We managed, at my insistence, to get the Highways Agency to attend a packed meeting of hundreds of residents. Indeed, we had to turn people away because it was not judged safe to let many more into the hall. The meeting turned into a series of angry exchanges, and the quality of information given by the Highways Agency was very poor. Residents were left feeling confused and with no information. That situation occurred under the previous Government, and I was as critical of the Transport Ministers then as I am now about the scheme, so it is in no way a partisan point. Since then, the Highways Agency has promised regular newsletters, but only one has emerged. It was initially delivered to entirely the wrong residential area, reaching none of the people who will be affected by the changes.

For my constituents, the environmental impact of the widening is a big worry. They are worried not only that traffic will be brought close to their homes but about what will happen to existing measures to deal with noise. There is an acoustic fence and a narrow barrier of trees at different points along the motorway, but that is all that stands between my constituents and all the traffic on the motorway. Indeed, the acoustic fence was installed only after much campaigning by my predecessor, Terry Lewis MP. Any changes to that fence or to the tree barrier would leave local residents much more exposed to noise and to visual and atmospheric pollution, which they do not want.

One resident has already experienced a distressing accident in which a heavy goods vehicle ploughed through the acoustic fence, down the bank and into her garden, killing the driver. She must now face the fact that it is planned to bring that traffic even closer to her home and garden. Another resident was concerned about the impact that the additional lane of traffic would have on the safety of his young children playing in the garden or on the street. Indeed, I understand that a sloping grassy bank with mature shrubs at the end of one small street will be replaced by a vertical brick wall.