M.1: Maintenance Work (Hansard, 9 February 1982)

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport has made every effort to ensure that repairs to the M.1 are completed in the shortest practicable time in order to minimise the disruption of traffic. Repairs are phased to avoid congestion. The Department of Transport continue to encourage accelerated contracts which make maximum use of night-time and weekend working, but wherever possible work is suspended when particularly heavy traffic is expected, such as at major sporting events and Bank Holidays. The department's traffic management techniques continue to improve and during 1982 they propose to introduce new designs of lane diversion to speed up the flow of traffic.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. But would the noble Earl recall that I asked this Question 18 months ago, and I was then given an Answer in pretty much the same phraseology as the words used by the noble Earl this afternoon? Would he not agree that over the last year, 1981, very little has been done to improve the methods of speeding-up maintenance, and is it not a fact that anyone coming down the M.1 over the weekend will see miles and miles of lane closures and absolutely no work being done?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's endorsement of the continuity of the department's policy. So far as motorway improvements are concerned, as I am sure the noble Lord is well aware, for the next three or four years the M.1 will need to have something like 11 major contracts performed on it each year. Until that is done, we shall not be able to ensure that it will be able to go on for the next 20 years.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, will my noble friend try to do something to make sure that the hard shoulder is more used when one of the other lanes is blocked? Is he aware that, frequently, one sees more effort being put into disposing plastic cones down miles and 90 miles of motorway, than one does on any repairs actually going on on the motorway? This is restrictive and very disheartening and there cannot be much feeling of urgency at present. Would my noble friend try to do something with the 11 disruptions, which he forecasts are likely to happen on the motorway in the next year?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, one of the troubles about the hard shoulders is that, unfortunately, they were not designed to bear the heavy traffic which a lane diversion involves. These hard shoulders are now being reinforced, with the result that they can be used more. So far as cones are concerned, the fact that no work is visible often hides the presence of plant and equipment, uncompleted repairs, damaged barriers or sections of relaid carriageway which are still drying out. It is the new policy that only a limited distance will now be done at any one time, which I hope will mean that my noble friend will not see such a plethora of cones being laid.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, is not the advice given to the Department of Transport that it is not so much the number of vehicles which causes damage to the track, as the weight which has to be sustained by individual axles? Has the noble Earl seen the calculations on the increased 38 tonnes lorry weights, which show that, according to the Government's suggestions, there would sometimes be an axle load of 12 tonnes, which would cause an immense amount of damage and result in the M.1 hardly ever being open?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I shall study the noble Lord's figures. I do not think I have them in front of me at the moment. The overwhelming evidence from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory is that road wear caused by lorries depends on axle weight, rather than total weight. All the indications point to 40 tonnes vehicles, spread over five axles, causing less wear than 32 tonnes vehicles, spread over four axles.

§ Lord Shinwell
My Lords, is the noble Earl, Lord Avon, not ignoring the important point which my noble friend Lord Beswick has raised; namely, that in various parts of London—and one notices it almost every day, travelling through London on the way to the Lords and leaving the Lords for some other place—preparations have been entered into to undertake work, but there are no workmen available? This happens all over the place. I have noticed it for several months now, where arrangements have been made, there is equipment, the place has been covered and traffic has to be diverted, but no workmen appear. Are there no workmen available in London to undertake the work for which contracts have been entered into? I beg the noble Earl to take note of that.

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention. I am not in any way trying to avoid anything which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has asked me, and I am looking forward to his next supplementary which I see he is about to put. So far as the roads in London are concerned, they are not trunk roads which are the responsibility of my 91 right honourable friend, but are the responsibility of the Greater London Conncil, and I am sure that it will take note of the noble Lord's remark.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords—

§ Lord Derwent
It is our turn. Is my noble friend aware that I live 200 miles up the M.1 and, therefore, go up and down it all the time? I think that the way in which road works were handled the year before last was appalling, but does my noble friend realise that in the last year there seems to have been a great improvement?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for coming to my support in that way. I have in front of me the 1982 plans for the first 100 kilometres of the M.1, and I shall be happy to show him how carefully these plans are made.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords—

§ Baroness Macleod of Borve
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he can encourage the Ministry to let the local radio stations put out advance notice of repairs taking place? Some of us, like my noble friend, go up and down the M.1 a very great deal, and it sometimes takes well over one hour longer. If we had notice that certain sections were to be repaired at certain times, we could allow for that in our schedules.

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those remarks. My department is introducing new motorway signs informing motorists of likely delays and, where possible, how to avoid them. I will make sure that my noble friend's point about local broadcasting stations is brought to the attention of my right honourable friend.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the difference between myself and his noble friend sitting behind him is that I drive down the M.1 with my eyes open while he appears to have his closed? Would the noble Earl further take into account the report which I saw in the Daily Telegraph on 7th December of last year in which they say that at one M.1 roadworks alone—one M.1 roadworks alone—in the period between May and November there were no fewer than 300 accidents involving 800 vehicles at an estimated cost of £3 million? Does he really think that this justifies the optimism and the complacency shown by his noble friend behind him?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I have not got the 7th December figures in front of me, but I will look at the article. The number of accidents on motorways declined in 1981, despite an increased programme of repairs. The department continues to make every effort to increase safety and has recently prepared a television film which is now being screened to emphasise to drivers in negotiating work sites the importance of speed limits and keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front.

§ Lord Davies of Leek
My Lords, while we are speaking of information put out by local radio, just to say something nice to the noble Earl for once, may I ask him whether he is aware that everybody appreciates the work which both local radio and national radio do in informing us of the various trouble spots on our roads throughout the country?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I myself never miss listening in my bath to London broadcasting in the morning.

§ Lord Hankey
My Lords, before we leave this Question may we ask the Government whether they could do more to press forward with the construction of the M.25 which is desperately needed to relieve traffic in and around London?

§ The Earl of Avon
My Lords, that is a different question. However, I have stressed in two recent debates that the Government are pressing ahead with the M.25 as fast as they can.