HC Deb 27 April 1954 vol 526 cc1585-92

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

10.9 p.m.

Mr. J. E. S. Simon (Middlesbrough, West)

My object tonight is to draw attention to some of London's traffic problems, and to suggest one of the many expedients to which it may be necessary to have recourse to solve them.

I do not know how my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary spent his Easter —whether he was one of those who drove a car during the holidays—but when I looked at the headlines in "The Times" with reference to the Easter traffic I saw that on the Saturday there was a five-mile line of cars returning to London. In "The Times" on Tuesday last, in a report of traffic conditions on Easter Monday, there was a sub-heading, "Vehicles Jammed." The report said: On each of the Oxford, Bath, Portsmouth, Brighton, Eastbourne, Southend, and Great North roads vehicles were travelling two and three abreast in places at the rate of many more than 2,000 an hour. This was only one of the many examples of chaos which existed on the roads over Easter.

That state of affairs is endemic in London. I cannot do better than quote the words used by my hon. Friend in the debate on traffic flow in London on 15th April, when he said: I frankly admit that the existing state of traffic is unsatisfactory, and that it is becoming worse daily. He went on to say: We are not very far from a complete blockage of traffic in London … in Oxford Street … the average speed of traffic at the present time is less than eight miles an hour." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th April, 1954; Vol. 526, c. 1409–10.] In that debate it was brought out that vehicles travelling through London spend only two-thirds of their time doing effective work. For the remaining one-third they are stationary, but still burning fuel. The average speed of London transport vehicles on all their scheduled routes is under 11 miles an hour, and one can travel more quickly on a bicycle in the country than across London in a motor vehicle.

This problem was authoritatively investigated as long ago as 1937, by Sir Charles Bressey, assisted by the great architect, Sir Edward Lutyens. Sir Charles made various observations as to traffic delays, and it is quite obvious from the figures quoted by my hon. Friend that, serious as the situation was then, it has deteriorated since. Sir Charles drew attention to the value of the arterial roads surrounding London, and said: As a typical instance may be quoted the new Great West Road which parallels and relieves the old Brentford High Street route. According to the Ministry's traffic census extracts from which are given below the new route as soon as it was opened carried four and a half times more vehicles than the old route was carrying. No diminution, however, occurred in the flow of traffic along the old route and from that day to this the number of vehicles on both routes has steadily increased. He set out certain figures and said: These figures serve to exemplify the remarkable, manner in which new roads create new traffic. He went on to examine the urgent projects which needed to be taken in hand. First and foremost he placed the necessity for a new east-west connection, to connect the flow of traffic between the Western Avenue and the Eastern Avenue, and he went on to point out that a 60 per cent, grant was going to be issued from the Road Fund. That was his Route No. 1. His Route No. 48 was an improvement of the Harrow Road, which, he considered, was incapable of proper improvement on its present alignment, and he proposed a new road to supplement the Harrow Road and to carry the London traffic out to Tring.

The question I want to ask my hon. Friend is, how soon is either of those two projects likely to be implemented? I think that all who look at this problem realistically must realise that there is no immediate prospect of its implementation. There is a vast cost, obviously, in buying the land required, in buying the buildings, in demolishing buildings, and in preparing the route. Therefore, it is incumbent to look for an alternative method of driving these motor roads through London, for they are a vital necessity if the traffic is not slowly to grind to a standstill. The question I wish to ask my hon. Friend is whether the sites of the London canals can be used, whether those canals are now performing an economic function, and, in particular, whether the space they occupy could be more economically used as roadways.

London is traversed by a great canal system, or what was formerly a great canal system. The part to which I would bring my hon. Friend's attention is what was the Paddington branch of the Grand Junction Canal from Bull's Bridge Junction to Paddington, and what was the Regent's Canal to its terminus, and the Hertford Union Canal. That traverses London from west to east, it by-passes the main traffic routes of London, and it goes closely parallel to what Sir Charles Bressey suggested was the proper No. I east-west connection, and very close indeed to what he suggested as his Harrow Road improvement.

The great advantage of that if it could be made into a roadway would be that it would provide the large nucleus of the east-west avenue, going certainly from Western Avenue almost to the terminus of Eastern Avenue at Leytonstone, bypassing the main traffic congestion of London. Its terminus at the Hertford Union Canal is easily continued across open country to Eastern Avenue.

It is difficult to isolate from the Transport Commission's accounts the actual economic status of this space of canal, but what is certain is that the canals as a whole are running at a loss. According to the latest accounts we have, in1951the carrying operations of the canals resulted in a loss of over £88,000, and the other operations in a loss of over £186,000; and in 1952 there were similarly losses under both heads. In

1952the railways took 75 per cent, of the freights, the roads 20 per cent., and the inland waterways only decimal point 2 per cent.

Mr. John Baird (Wolverhampton, North-East)

I am very interested in the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, but is it not a fact that for many years the canals have been neglected so that they are running at a loss now? Is not a major solution of the problem of traffic congestion the modernisation of the canals to get heavy traffic off the roads? That cannot be done if the canals are closed. The London canals comprise part of the national network, and to close them would strike a blow at the whole canal system. I believe that the Government are inquiring how to develop rather than close them.

Mr. Simon

I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing attention to these two important points. In the first place, by closing that stretch of canal we should not affect the great system of the central English waterways because, for example, the Grand Junction Canal still has its outlet in the Thames at Brentford in the system of wharves. In the second place, the hon. Gentleman is, of course, perfectly correct about neglect. The canals have been neglected virtually since 1830, when they were superseded economically by the railways.

The Chairman of the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive has estimated that £20 million is needed even to bring the canals into proper working order on their present standard which, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, is itself grossly defective. At the present rate of expenditure the canals will, by 1980, be brought back only to the standard of 1830, when the railways started effectively to compete. Even when that money has been spent there is no guarantee or prospect that the increased traffic would repay the money expended. Therefore, although one cannot be dogmatic about these things, I suggest to my hon. Friend that here there is a matter for investigation.

Can the money be better spent; would the sums which, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, are needed to bring the canals into a proper state of repair so far as the London stretch is concerned, be better spent in turning them into a roadway? I understand that there is sufficient space adjacent to the canals. In 1906, the Regent's Canal Company gave evidence that they had sufficient space to place a railway alongside their existing canal, even after extending that canal to carry a larger type of barge. I suggest that a subject which could be investigated is whether if these canals were turned into roadways they could be paid for, or partially paid for, by a toll system. The Mersey Tunnel, for example, has been paid for or largely paid for by tolls.

The present wharfage facilities adjacent to the canals, and particularly the termini at Paddington and the City Basin, could well be used for garaging facilities which are so urgently needed at the termini of the great trunk road system.

I ask only for an inquiry as to whether these important economic resources are being used to the best advantage, or whether the canals should be converted into roads. I suggest to my hon. Friend that this should prove an important step in getting the traffic moving again through the heart of the capital of this great Commonwealth.

Mr. Baird

I should also like to see an inquiry into the whole structure of our canal system. I am fairly certain that such an inquiry would prove that if the canals were properly developed they would become an economic asset as are the Continental canals at present. I ask the Minister seriously to consider whether it would not be dangerous to close any more canals until there has been such an inquiry to ascertain whether it be possible, even at a major capital cost, to develop our canal system to take some of the heavy traffic off the roads and so save many thousands of lives.

10.25 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson)

I am always indebted to any hon. Member who is able to make a constructive suggestion about how we can deal with the ever-increasing congestion of London traffic. Naturally, therefore, when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr Simon) gave notice that he proposed to raise this matter, and to suggest that existing canals should be used to provide additional roads, I was interested to see what would be the result of the inquiry caused in my Department by his initiative.

My hon. and learned Friend asked me how I spent my Easter holiday. I spent it agreeably in the country far away from London, but on the day the House adjourned I had to make a fairly long speech on London traffic, and it appears that as soon as I have come back it is again London traffic to which I have to address myself.

I am afraid that the inquiries which we have made do not suggest that my hon. and learned Friend's suggestion is a very easy one to adopt. In the first place, the length of the Grand Union Canal to which he has specially referred tonight is very far from being disused. In 1952, it transported 307,000 tons of merchandise, and in 1953 this had risen to 357,000 tons of merchandise, of which 140,000 tons were coal.

The hon. Member for Wolver-hampton, North-East (Mr. Baird) said that to use this particular length of canal would seriously dislocate the existing canal system of this country.

Mr. Baird

I said the very opposite. It was the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon) who said that.

Mr. Molson

As a matter of fact, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East is entirely correct upon this point. The Grand Union Canal, which forms the waterway route between London and the Midlands, has terminals on the Thames at Regent's Canal Dock, Lime-house, and at Brentford, and the closure of the sector between Mile End Road and Western Avenue would involve the closure of communications with the Regent's Canal Dock and the busy waterway route through London which is now very largely used by lighters from the Thames.

The British Transport Commission, which own the canal, say that there is no intention of closing this important section of the waterways system, so we can say of this particular canal that it is still of great commercial importance at the present time and there are some indications that the traffic is increasing.

My right hon. Friend, in making a speech in the House recently, announced that he was setting up an inquiry with a view to increasing the use of the inland waterways of this country. I can say that the speech made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East in a recent debate did draw attention to this matter, and in the subsequent debate there were four hon. Members on both sides of the House who also took very much the same line. My right hon. Friend is very pleased indeed that the Chairman of the British Transport Commission has appointed a Committee to go into this matter, of Lord Rusholme representing the British Transport Commission, of which he is a member, and Sir Reginald Hodges, who has just retired from being manager of the Mersey Docks Commission.

We should not be disposed at the present time to adopt any proposal for closing down canals when we are seeking to find out whether it would not be possible, by further capital expenditure and so on, to modernise these inland waterways, and in that way do something to relieve the excessive traffic which is now burdening our roads.

It is not only in the way of traffic that this canal is still performing a very useful service to the community. Supplies of water for industry, amounting to no less than 3,000 million gallons a year, are being drawn from this canal, of which 60 per cent, is used for electricity and gas undertakings. Fifty different concerns, many of them important industrial undertakings, are drawing water from the canal. The county and Civil Defence authorities regard this water supply as being extremely valuable as a reserve for fire-fighting purposes.

In the next place, the Metropolitan Water Board regard it as a potential emergency water supply in the event of war, and the water, after purification, could be used as a very valuable additional water supply for London. In addition, the canal is used for drainage purposes of surface water and for no less than 80 separate industrial undertakings, which are passing their effluent into it after it has been purified.

I have given those various purposes for which the canal is in use at the present time. If it were intended to discontinue it and to convert it into a road, it obviously would be necessary to look elsewhere for some other source from which those supplies could be obtained.

But there are also a number of physical difficulties in building a road where the canal now exists. There are no less than 54 existing road and railway bridges over the canal. A great many, probably a majority, of those bridges would have insufficient headroom if any road were to be built that would be useful for modern traffic. The cost of replacing 54 bridges by larger and more up-to-date bridges would be a serious burden and would greatly diminish any economic advantage that might be derived from using this route for a modern road.

There are also two tunnels through which the canal passes. At Islington, there is a tunnel half a mile long. At Maida Vale, there is another tunnel, 270 yards long. For the purposes of a modern road, the dimensions are quite inadequate, and it would be necessary for it both to be widened and probably also for the tunnels to be greatly raised. The cost of that, having regard to the property in the vicinity, would be almost prohibitive.

Mr. Simon

Did not the Bressey Report recommend a tunnel in precisely those places?

Mr. Molson

The Bressey Report was issued a number of years ago, and my Department have been considering the matter since. The points that I am raising tonight, none of which are necessarily in themselves finally conclusive upon this matter, are difficulties which have occurred to the Department and which, they think, cumulatively make it a difficult proposition for us to undertake.

It would be necessary for any road of this kind to have a dual carriageway, and the canal is too narrow for that purpose. It therefore would be necessary to acquire property on both sides. It would also be necessary to have an appropriate number of accesses from the main traffic arteries. This would involve the compulsory acquisition of property and would present difficulties and would be costly. Nor would the road to be built where the canal now is, be level. There are a number of locks upon this stretch and, therefore, the road itself would have steep inclines.

Those appear to us to be a number of the difficulties which have to be faced before we could accept the proposal which my hon. and learned Friend has made tonight. We certainly could not accept it at the present time, because as I have reminded the House, we have now arranged for an inquiry into the use of inland waterways for the purpose of water transport. Until we know what can be done to develop and improve the existing waterways, we shall be most reluctant to convert any of the existing ones into a roadway.

My hon. and learned Friend has only asked that there should be an inquiry into the financial possibilities of a scheme of this kind. We feel that the prima facie case against this being an economic proposition is so strong that we are not at the present time prepared to accept his proposal.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-Three Minutes to Eleven o'clock.