HC Deb 11 December 1952 vol 509 cc825-36

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

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Russell (Wembley, South)

The subject on which I want to address the House is that of traffic problems, but I feel I ought to begin by sympathising with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport for having to stay for another half-an-hour after he has had a very busy week. I understand that he has another much more attractive engagement. As he and I both know, it is the fault of neither of us that this debate did not take place a fortnight ago last Tuesday.

The traffic problem I particularly want to turn his attention to is an application by the Wembley Borough Council to introduce unilateral waiting in various streets in the borough. This application was made on 7th February, 1951, which was nearly two years ago. The streets which the borough council wish to make into one-way waiting number 15 and they adjoin Wembley High Road. As most hon. Members know the borough of Wembley for sporting reasons, if for nothing else, they will recall that Wembley High Road is the name given to Harrow Road as it passes through most of the borough.

This application arises from the fact that, a few years ago, restrictions prohibiting all waiting were introduced in certain sections of the High Road, which caused cars to park in adjoining streets instead. Now, the position is so chaotic that some regulations are needed to prevent enormous traffic blocks. The present parking facilities are completely inadequate. The only real solution is a long-term one of new car parks, which cannot be considered at the moment. Meanwhile, a short-term solution is essen- tial. The borough council one-and-a-half years ago fondly hoped that there would be a short-term solution.

They wrote to the Minister on 7th February, 1951, confidently asking that unilateral waiting should be established and urgent consideration should be given to the problem. In June, 1951, the Ministry replied: As a first step, the Minister proposes to impose unilateral waiting in certain main streets in the London area, and in the light of that experience gained, he will consider the extension of these restrictions to other streets in the London area, including those suggested by your Council. On three such occasions the borough council wrote, and each time received similar replies. I realise, of course, that what happened—or, rather what did not happen—between 7th February, 1951, and November, 1951, has nothing to do with my hon. Friend, but this is not a party political matter, and there have been delays throughout the whole of the past year—nearly two years.

Now, I submit that the position of Wembley and that of Central London, and of the other streets in the suburban area which are included in the experimental scheme which, we hope, is shortly to be introduced, are totally different. After all, to give only two examples of the streets in Central London, Sackville Street and Tothill Street in the West End are streets of shops and offices. Incidentally, if I may digress for a moment, I am rather surprised that in the schedule for the West End Dover Street and Albemarle Street are not included, because they are streets in which there is supposed to be no waiting at all at the present moment, but they are always congested because cars still wait on both sides of them despite the prohibition, whereas if the vehicles were all on one side it would be very much better for traffic. However, I pass over that point.

Now, Wembley's 15 streets about which I am speaking are quite different from any scheduled in the West End. Only five of them have any shops at all, and only two of them an appreciable number of shops, and most of them are really residential streets. At the widest point of the widest the width is 24 feet 6 inches; and the narrowest width is 22 feet 3 inches; and the average width of all of them is 24 feet. If cars are parked on both sides of any one of those streets they take up about seven feet on each side, leaving 10 feet through which two-way traffic has to find its way.

Through one or two of the roads there is a considerable stream of two-way traffic because they are ways through from the Harrow Road to North Wembley and other parts of North-West London. The fact that these are largely residential streets makes the objections to the introduction of unilateral waiting which have been experienced, I think, nearly everywhere where it has been tried, quite different. There have been none, so I am told, from any traders in the area, nor from any occupiers of business premises.

I might feel like objecting myself, as a matter of fact, because in one of the streets are the headquarters of the Wembley South Conservative Association, and when one-way waiting is introduced into that street I shall not find it quite so easy to park there as I do now. However, I think objections of that kind are completely overruled by the need for introducing some kind of order into those particular streets.

The objections that have been received by the borough council since it has been known that this scheme is going to be introduced, are that the residential streets will be used as car parks. The answer to that is that cars are already being parked there, and are being parked there now for long periods of time, whereas if unilateral waiting were introduced there would, presumably, be some time limit—say, of 20 minutes—on the period for which a car could wait.

Another objection is that there will be noise of doors banging and self-starters being put into operation late at night. There is some noise now, as far as I can gather, but if the unilateral waiting restrictions are applied, permitting parking only to, say, 6 o'clock or 6.30, and parking is made illegal after that time, that will overcome the difficulty—at any rate, as much as it is overcome by the present lack of any regulations at all.

I think that goes to show that this problem in Wembley is vastly different from that in Central London. Frankly, I do not see why there is need for an experiment in unilateral waiting, even in the West End. In answer to a Question of mine, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said that 250 towns in England and Wales had applied some form of unilateral waiting for some considerable time, and these towns included Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Bristol. Surely the experience of these cities counts for something, or is London so very different from them?

One does not need to go far away before finding unilateral waiting restrictions. It is in operation in certain portions of the High Street at Watford, which is like the streets scheduled in London, and different from the streets at Wembley in which the borough council proposes to introduce it. Then there is Torquay, and I mention that town, because the borough surveyor of Wembley was there before he came to Wembley. He told me yesterday how successful the introduction of unilateral waiting was in certain streets there in changing chaos into order.

But even if the West End of London is so different from the other parts of the country, it is not in all respects different from the City of London, where in ten streets this form of waiting has been in operation for up to 20 years, and there are many examples of the introduction of this restriction in other towns abroad. There seems to have been an appalling delay in putting the Central London experiment into operation. I understand it is to be started early next year and will be subject to six months' trial before it is extended to Wembley or anywhere else. Supposing that it is started in February, that will mean it will be in August before any decision is reached about its working.

Thus, it will be the late summer or early autumn of 1953 before the system can be introduced in Wembley, even as a further experiment. That would be two and a half years after the date of the application by the Wembley Borough Council, which I do not think one could call a short-term solution of a pressing problem. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary told me there are three other applications from the Metropolitan Police district, presumably places different from those in the schedule which I understand is to be issued giving the list of streets in the Metropolitan area in which this experiment is to be tried, we hope very soon.

I suggest that it is fantastic to have waited so long for a simple experiment to be tried in 15 streets in the borough of Wembley. When one thinks of the progress made in two and a half years in other matters such as jet propulsion, atomic energy, aircraft design, and rearmament, it is rather odd to find no progress made in overcoming traffic congestion in streets off the High Road at Wembley. I would ask my hon. Friend to look at this application again to see if something cannot be done to speed up action. I cannot understand why there is this reluctance in the Metropolitan Police district, because it is only there that it seems to occur, to introduce this unilateral waiting scheme when it is operating in the City of London and in 250 other places in England and Wales.

As I said, one has only to go out as far as Watford to find it in operation, although it has not been operating there for long. It is quite wrong, when a borough wants power to introduce such a scheme within its own boundaries to produce some kind of order out of appalling chaos that occurs there, particularly on a Saturday afternoon which is probably the busiest shopping time, that it should have to wait until an experiment is tried in other parts of London where conditions are totally different. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to look into this matter again with a view to short-term measures being taken to relieve the appalling congestion of traffic which occurs there at the present time.

11.5 p.m.

Wing Commander Eric Bullus (Wembley, North)

I am happy to support my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) in his plea. The town clerk of Wembley wrote to both its Members, and because the High Road comes in my hon. Friend's Division he has raised this subject.

In little over a quarter of a mile in the High Road there are two zebra crossings and there are traffic lights at each end of this quarter of a mile, so that one can see that the high road becomes very congested. I am also concerned about the amount of traffic which comes temporarily to Wembley for its major sporting events. The High Road is not directly affected by this traffic, but entry to and from the borough is often diffi- cult and hazardous as a result of these sporting events.

I have the figures for 21 major sporting events held at the Stadium in the last three years. We have had 47,932 cars and 10,098 coaches, which is an average of 2,282 cars and 480 coaches for each event. In addition to this form of traffic, there are hundreds of bicycles and motor cycles. At the Cup Final in May this year there were 3,984 cars and 171 coaches, a total of 4,155 vehicles. In the speedway championship last September there were 3,215 cars and 871 coaches, a total of 4,086 vehicles. Last month, for the England v. Wales match there was a total of 3,470 cars and coaches, and for the Belgian match at the beginning of this month the total was 2,706.

It usually takes about an hour to clear the traffic from the approaches to the Wembley Stadium, although on the last occasion when the Belgians were playing a football match there, it took only half an hour. These last two matches, however, were mid-week matches and although the traffic is cleared from the immediate vicinity of the stadium, it meets the homecoming traffic from the West End; and bottlenecks at Neasden and other roads leading to Wembley have caused real traffic jams.

I ask the Minister to endeavour to effect some improvement on these roads, especially on the Harrow Road, which takes the greater volume of traffic to and from Wembley Stadium. I find from observation and experience that there is a general hold-up at Harlesden at a point opposite the library where there are traffic lights and where the town traffic—the up traffic—is not allowed to filter into Manor Park road. It could very well be done by a green arrow indicating that the nearside traffic could filter to the left.

Similar, or worse, is the Willesden junction opposite the College Park Hotel. I think the up traffic should be allowed to run when the parallel traffic in the opposite direction is coming from town to Wembley. Much improvement could be effected by two green arrows affixed to the traffic lights, thus allowing traffic to filter at these points.

Further along, at Paddington, where the Great West Road crosses the Harrow Road, there is much congestion. The roads have barriers along the pavements, but it is not a yellow band area. Traffic parks on both sides of the road there, and with trolley buses and other vehicles there is generally a traffic block when any major sporting event is held at Wembley.

I have other suggestions of a general nature, but I think I must use those in some subsequent debate so that I can leave 10 minutes for my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to reply. I hope that the Minister will consider these points and will give Wembley some hope in the matter.

11.10 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite)

May I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) for his solicitude, and, if I am not guilty of a solecism, in view of the fact that both Members for Wembley have addressed the House in this short debate, tell them that I am willing to play half an hour's extra time on this occasion.

I ought to begin by dealing with the present experimental scheme of unilateral waiting in London. In their Report on "London Traffic Congestion," the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) served for some time most usefully, recommended that unilateral waiting might be tried out in certain streets of secondary traffic importance in the central area of London, and that meanwhile this restriction might be put into operation immediately in a few selected streets.

The then Minister, the right hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes) accepted this recommendation in principle, and announced in this House on 3rd April, 1950, among other things, that he would consider, in consultation with the Traffic Advisory Committee, the introduction of such regulations which would, however, be experimental in the first instance. The Traffic Advisory Committee subsequently recommended unanimously that unilateral waiting restrictions be imposed on certain selected streets in the Metropolitan Police district, the most important feature being that on the re- commendation of the Metropolitan Police, the regulations would include a total prohibition during certain hours on the unloading and loading of vehicles on one side of the road.

Of course, in this respect these restrictions would be far more onerous than the present yellow band "no waiting" restrictions on main thoroughfares in London. Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that many objections were received as a result of the advertisement, including that of the Westminster Council. My right hon. Friend has none the less accepted the Committee's recommendation, subject to certain minor amendments, and has stated that he would review the scheme after it had been in operation for six months.

As regards the time occupied in accepting the Committee's advice, this was tendered in October, 1951, but owing to the time that was necessary to publish the advertisement and to deal with objections, including the particularly strong objections of the Westminster City Council, my right hon. Friend was not able until July of this year to accept the Committee's recommendations, after a special meeting with the Commissioner of Police. Since then, negotiations have been taking place to arrange for co-ordination in ordering the necessary signs, some three or four hundred of which are required. As a result of the arrangements made with the help of the Ministry of Transport, signs should be ready for erection early in the new year; the regulations will be made, and the experiment will then begin.

My hon. Friend has for a long time been pressing that the scheme should be extended to Wembley. The streets he has in mind are unrestricted streets adjacent to the main High Road, and of little traffic importance. I think that they should go on record; they are, Cecil Avenue, Chaplin Road, Copland Road, Elm Road, Lancelot Road, London Road, Lonsdale Avenue, Montrose Crescent, Ranelagh Road, Rosemead Avenue, Rupert Avenue, Station Grove, St. John's Road, Thurlow Gardens, and Turton Road.

I would now turn to the reasons why the expansion of the scheme at the moment is unwelcome. Unilateral waiting with severe restrictions on loading and unloading—that is, a total prohibition between 11.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays in Central London, and on Mondays to Saturdays in suburban areas—is a new departure and the Minister decided to undertake the experiment with some hesitation after discussion with the Commissioner of Police himself. Although objections to the scheme were not so many as we feared, they were numerous and serious. It might even be said that they were formidable, and it might well be that the scheme in practice may be found to be rather rigorous. It is true, as my hon. Friend has said, that Wembley itself wants this scheme applied to its area, and if the experiment is shown to be acceptable to the public in general, no doubt the Minister will consider including Wembley in the second batch of regulations.

I must, however, ask him to bear in mind that the streets which Wembley would wish to have covered are not streets of any great traffic importance, but mainly residential streets which have been filled up with cars displaced from the High Road, Wembley, which is a "No Waiting" area. The real answer here, in our opinion, is the provision of car parks, further off-street parking, and not unilateral waiting. My right hon. Friend the Minister, and the police, desire to see how far the new regulations are self-enforced or how far the police will be called upon for more enforcement purposes. If extra attention turns out to be necessary, this might be especially difficult in Wembley, where I understand that police manpower is rather short of requirements.

We do not, however, want to stop Wembley from having a unilateral waiting scheme. The question is whether we should wait until the results of the experiment about to be tried in other parts of the London traffic area are known, or whether this scheme should be considered for introduction now. There are, as I have pointed out, advantages in waiting, but I should not wish to-night to rule out finally the possibility of taking earlier action.

I want to assure my hon. Friend that I will see that his representations are carefully considered and if it is then decided that the best course is to wait for the result of the experiment, I hope he will, as one who is always so assiduous on behalf of his constituents, appreciate our reasons. In that case, I can assure him that directly the results of the experiment are known I will ensure that the Wembley proposals are put to the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee without delay.

I should like, before I sit down, to refer to the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus). He spoke about traffic problems in the Harrow-road at different points, but particularly the hold-ups at Harlesden. But I think that the appropriate procedure in a matter such as this is for the suggestion to be made to the local authority responsible that it should submit its proposals for solving the difficulty to the Ministry's divisional road engineer.

The local authority here, I think, is Willesden Borough Council, and not Wembley, and if it makes representations to us, which I think we have not received, we shall be only too glad for our divisional road engineer to examine the problem in co-operation with the local authority. Any remedial measure we can take we shall be only too glad to approve. After those few remarks, I hope that my hon. Friends will be able to retire to their virtuous couches somewhat comforted.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that, as I know from past experience, the divisional road engineer does not always appear to listen with a great deal of practical sympathy to what local authorities and local police authorities say. On this occasion we hope that he will have practical co-operation in mind.

Mr. Braithwaite

I refute that entirely. These officers are most sympathetic to representations they receive.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.