HC Deb 11 June 1951 vol 488 cc2259-68

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell.]

9.46 p.m.

Mr. Bing (Hornchurch)

For each hundred Members now leaving the Chamber 12, if they lived in Hornchurch, would have to wade through a mud-filled unmade street to reach home. The points which I am raising, although coming from my own constituency, are all of general interest to hon. Members as illustrations of the case I shall submit. In Hornchurch, an area which was for a long time under Tory rule, we have 142 miles of made-up streets maintained by the local authority, and 20 miles of unmade roads. That means that, after allowing for houses on roads maintained by the county and the roads nationally maintained, 12 persons out of every 100 living in Hornchurch live in an unmade street, and, worse than that, many of these unmade streets cut off many other people from reaching a maintained road without traversing an unmade street.

To give one example from my own constituency, in the Bennett Road area, only a short portion of Lee Gardens is unmade, but a whole lot of people are cut off by the unmade portion from reaching, dry shod, either the shops or their work. One out of five people when they go to work, to the shops or the amusements, when they go to the doctor or when their children go to school, have to traverse an unmade road.

In Hornchurch there are 133 unmade streets, three-quarters of which are totally unmade. As one would expect, they extend over the whole area of the constituency, but one finds them more and more in the working-class quarters. The total estimated cost, at present prices, of making up all the unmade roads in Hornchurch would amount to about £523,000. But in the working-class area of the constituency, Rainham and South Hornchurch, where only about one-fifth of the population live, the cost of making up the roads will be no less than £243,000.

A great part of this area is only a foot or so above sea level. Deep Thames clay is churned up at least ankle deep in winter, and in summer it is in ruts so heavy and high that no vehicle can get in. No hearse can go into these streets; no ambulance and no cars to carry out the sick or infirm can get in, no builder's vehicle, and, if there is a fire, no fire engine can get through. Frederick Road in South Hornchurch is crossed by a stream, and I ought to thank private enterprise for providing a small footbridge consisting of one plank. That is the only fruit of private enterprise in that particular area.

Major Hicks-Beach (Cheltenham)

Will the hon. and learned Member give way?

Mr. Bing

No, I will not. I have waited 31 hours to speak on behalf of my constituents, and I am not now going to give way to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who on the last occasion when we discussed Hornchurch tried to make my speech for me.

At the moment, there are three people actually in hospital in my constituency due to accidents they suffered falling in these unmade roads. Thirty-three of these 133 unmade roads have no sewers at all, only cesspool drainage and all that that entails, and all this within 15 miles of St. Pauls, or, as hon. Gentlemen opposite would prefer it, within 14½ miles of the Stock Exchange.

Major Hicks-Beach

How many streets are there?

Mr. Bing

There are 133 unmade streets, a list of which I will give the hon. and gallant Gentleman.

I do not want to go into details of how this came about. It is only fair to the council to say that 60 per cent. of these streets were in an area which they took over in 1934 from other authorities. Of course, the war interrupted work and prevented correcting the result of predatory builders who were determined to get the houses up, sell them and let the streets go hang. But what we are concerned with in this debate is how we can deal with this problem, not only in Hornchurch, but over the whole country, because what I say about my constituency is, unfortunately, only too typical of very many others.

As I understand the Government's plan, it is intended to spend about £1 million annually for unmade streets for the whole country. Hornchurch has a normal allocation so small that it would take almost 100 years, according to my mathematics, to make up the roads at present unmade in that area. Very often we cannot even begin with some of the worst roads at the moment. Let me give my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary just one example of the sort of difficulties with which the council is faced. We cannot very often give priority to the worst roads because, in order to help other authorities—and it is right we should—we have to make up other roads under the Street Works Act and use our allocation for that purpose, even though it does not benefit a single frontage.

There is a great housing estate near Hornchurch which has been put up by the L.C.C., and it has fallen to my constituency to provide a secondary school to serve that estate. But that school cannot be used unless a road is built towards it. The land, which is hardly built on at all, is owned by the education authorities. They say that they will pay for the road but that the council must put it in. When the council puts in that road—it is called Wych Elm Road—it is charged against their allocation, and it used up a great part of their normal allocation to build a road which benefits only a very few frontagers in Hornchurch.

We are in this further difficulty, that we have some roads which cost almost as much as three years of our normal allocation and some even more than that. I will quote the name of one road again for the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks-Beach), who is so keen on the names of these places. Perhaps he would like to visit them and see the effect of private enterprise. It is Parsonage Road, Rainham, and it would cost £22,000 to make that road up.

I want to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary one or two questions. The first is why there is this upper limit on the total sum which can be spent on making private streets under the Private Streets Works Acts. It is not a question of taxation. The people who are going to pay for this are not ratepayers and taxpayers, but the frontagers who are to contribute from their own pockets in respect of the costs. They want to pay and they put money on one side. But as each year goes by, with rising prices, it is not sufficient, so that by not making up roads now they are incurring a loss.

I think my hon. Friend will say that if these good people each pay out these small sums of money all over the country for making up unmade streets it will involve us in some general inflation, but this total of £1 million was fixed last year. It was said last year, as I understand it, that if we went above £1 million for unmade streets we should find ourselves in danger of inflation. But now we are increasing by £1,100 million over three years the allocation of the sum we are spending on armaments. If we can do that without causing inflation, as we are assured by the Parliamentary Secretary's friends on the Government Front Bench, surely it is not too much to say we could have another £500,000 towards unmade roads.

If we cannot have another £500,000 towards unmade roads, let us look again at the priorities we give to other jobs. There is nothing worse than someone who comes to this House and decries proper and legitimate activities elsewhere and says that that expenditure should be devoted instead to his own constituency. I have great pleasure and pride in British achievement. For instance, in St. James Street there is a new Conservative Club building which fills in that quarter a great social want, which I would not suggest in any way should be curtailed.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson (Ilford, North)

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that it is the Bath Club and not the Conservative Club?

Mr. Bing

I am inclined to think that Conservatives are admitted to that club. At any rate, it is a great edifice and, whatever the politics of its inhabitants, if it were not constructed it would enable us to have roads made up in Hornchurch for 10 years. However, I do not suggest for a moment that anybody in Hornchurch would wish that that sacrifice should be made.

I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to consider the priorities. Let him look at the national interest at the moment. We are asking people to do shift-work in factories all the year round, and we are going to ask these people to come out in unlighted streets, full of deep pits into which they can fall and get injured, and into the mud and dirt. We ask them to leave their families at night when nobody can go out and fetch a doctor or anything of that sort. It is said we are making all these sacrifices for the purpose of defence and that we must put defence first.

Let us take defence on its narrowest possible ground. I do not think that the possible tragedy of a war should be taken into our considerations, but if it is by those people who think in that way, is it a good thing in regard to defence to have great areas through which a single fire engine cannot go, through which an ambulance could not penetrate, and through which no heavy rescue squad could be sent?

The worst features of our unmade roads lie along the London-Tilbury road. Further along, one comes to the happier constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) where there is a labour council and therefore not quite the same problem. In Hornchurch, however, if that road were to be cut one would find it would be quite impossible to pass any vehicle through any of the side streets because they are all unmade.

I know this is a point upon which other hon. Members want to speak, so I will deal with only what I believe to be one of the most extraordinary features of this matter. There is no reason in law why if every frontager who had an unmade road in front of his house proceeded to spend £99 on paving his garden, they should not do that without incurring, according to the Government plan, any danger of inflation. They can all do it. Even if they have made their road up, they can do it. Anyone can spend up to £100 without a licence. But let them get together and put that £100 towards a communal service like a road, which is not only to their benefit but also to the benefit of the other inhabitants and they must be restrained because that will lead to inflation. I do not think that is a fair or proper way in which to look at the matter.

In Hornchurch, the cost that falls on the ordinary frontager is in the neighbourhood of £90 to £100. So in practically every case this matter could be attended to without the need of going beyond a £100 limit. Cannot my hon. Friend say that where a street can be made up by frontagers who are prepared to forgo their right to spend £100 on unlicensed building, and where the cost of making up a road does not exceed £100 for each frontage, they should be allowed to do it? It is an extraordinary proposition to say that to put in a sewer will lead to inflation, but to put in an ornamental pond, using exactly the same material only using the various functions in reverse, so to speak, and having a fountain, is not inflation but a normal expenditure which can be allowed without any effect on the community.

I know I have delayed not only you, Mr. Speaker, but the House and all those who have been kept up for practically as long as the House of Commons has ever been kept up, but I would have been wrong not to raise this problem. It affects not only my constituency. It is not some little question of a small local complaint. It is a really serious matter which affects production, which affects health, which affects defence, and which shows, as far as I can see, a failure to have any coordinated policy.

I will end with one last example. When an estate is made up through permits given by the Ministry of Works, there are all sorts of different views for deciding what allocation shall be given to the road. What we are asked, in fact, is this. If one is a workman, that is all right: one can walk dry shod into the factory, because there, where an estate is developed under a Ministry of Works licence it is necessary to have a road to take one dry shod to the factory; but when one gets back in the direction of one's home, then one can walk through the mud and slush which the Tory system of housebuilding has bequeathed to this country.

That is not, in my view, a Socialist approach to the question. I look to my hon. Friend in the hope that he will at any rate hold out some prospect of dealing with what is a grave injustice to a very great number of the people of this country.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Lindgren)

I feel that I ought to acknowledge that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) has been pegging away at the problem of the unmade roads of his constituency ever since he has been a Member of this House. From Departmental files I have evidence of his endeavours—of his constant and persistent endeavours—in this matter since early 1946.

Since I have been at the Ministry of Local Government and Planning I have had personal experience of that pressure and persistence through the representations he has made to me and to the Ministry which I have the honour to serve—representations by way of correspondence, personal discussions, the bringing of deputations from the local authority, and also the speeches which he made on the New Streets Bill, the Measure which was recently introduced into, and has passed through, the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Kinley).

I think I ought to say that his endeavours have been to good purpose, for his constituency has received—if not as the direct result of his endeavours, certainly his endeavours have helped to secure the result—allocations at a much higher rate than other urban districts. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Just a moment. I will say why—because the problem there is greater than that of many other parts of the country. We do appreciate the problem so far as Hornchurch is concerned.

My hon. and learned Friend gave some of the reasons for the condition which arose in Hornchurch. One was, as he suggested, the very rapid development in the area in the inter-war years. It is always very easy to be wise after the event, but no one expected that the war of 1939 would come along—or, perhaps, I should say most folk at least hoped it would not, even if they expected it. However, part of the problems of Hornchurch must be laid at the door of the Urban District Council of that time, for they were not as energetic as other local authorities were in their areas, in seeing that roads, sewers, and other services kept pace with the housing development of the area. I feel that it is a little unkind, perhaps, to penalise areas which were seeing that their street development kept in step with their house building—to penalise them now by giving a greater allocation to Hornchurch.

We have given Hornchurch more because the problem there has been greater. All we can do to help we certainly will. I want to make the point that my hon. and learned Friend generously did, that the problem which faces Hornchurch faces, to a smaller degree, most areas throughout the length and breadth of the land. There are very few urban, rural or borough authorities that have not unmade streets in their areas. They were streets in which development was lagging behind just prior to 1939. Therefore, other local authorities have wanted further allocations.

I am happy to give some hope, although I make no promise, to my hon. Friend in regard to the point raised concerning the road in which a school is being developed. He recently brought a deputation from his Council and both he and the members of the deputation made their case very fully. It is true that the making up of another road which had been agreed to by my Ministry had to be deferred to make up this road to provide an access to the school.

I think that the Council were right in providing a proper access for the children going to that school. I am prepared to look at the question of this road to see whether, in the circumstances, we can make a special allocation, but I cannot give a great deal of hope of additional allocations because I think that in relation to the grants made Hornchurch are fairly treated, having regard to the other authorities throughout the country. Perhaps one might say that they are favourably treated in relation to other areas.

My hon. Friend has asked why there has been a limitation on the private street works throughout the country. One of the problems that we have in dealing with a capital investment programme is to consider the use to which that investment is put. The group in which private street works come is a miscellaneous local government group which includes such things as sea-defence schemes, provision of civic centres, town halls, community centres and the building of libraries.

Major Hicks-Beach

When I spoke on this subject some nine months ago, the Minister of Transport answered and he made it clear that the roads in Hornchurch were his responsibility so far as licensing was concerned.

Mr. Lindgren

I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is referring to two different problems. There are roads for which the Minister of Transport is respon- sible and there are district roads for which the local authority is responsible. These are the district roads, the making up of which is, in some cases, the responsibility of the builders, and one for which they were paid. They are now the responsibility of the local district council on loan sanctions from my Department.

Mr. Hutchinson

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that in a large number of these cases the owners of the houses did pay the road charges.

Mr. Lindgren

Not in all cases, but in a number of cases. Where they have paid and now have to pay a second time, it makes it all the more difficult.

Let us forget this pre-war private enterprise development. My hon. Friend's own local authority is one of the best urban housing authorities in the country. They have done the right thing and we have encouraged them to do so. They have made up their roads, and the new estates managed by the Hornchurch Urban District are fully serviced. It is true that the people in the Hornchurch new council estates have an advantage over the people who have been there 10, 15 or 20 years. When private enterprise develops a housing estate the Ministry of Works come to us about an allocation for road making, and to prevent the problems arising which arose in pre-war years we generally agree that the licence shall be issued. So it is true that in Horn-church at the present time the roads are developed at the same time as the houses are built.

It is a big problem and to prevent what has happened in the past occurring again I believe that we are doing the right thing. We are doing as much as we can to pull up the arrears, but it will take a long time to do so. The international tension of the present day and the necessity to devote so much of our national income to defence will not last for ever. As we are able to reduce expenditure in that direction and, indeed, on other items, then we shall be able to devote a greater proportion of our national income towards the urgent problem of private street works. We hope this will be soon.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. Alport (Colchester)

In view of the attack that the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) has made upon the Government, I have considerable sympathy with the point of view which he has put forward. He has submitted, quite rightly, that the very backward conditions which exist in his constituency and which are, in a great degree, the responsibility of—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Sixteen Minutes past Ten o'Clock p.m. 12th June.