HC Deb 20 June 1963 vol 679 cc789-800

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

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

There runs through my constituency a very densely trafficked trunk road, A.40, which carries a very heavy burden of traffic. Because of that, it is proposed to by-pass it right through Buckinghamshire from Denham to Stokenchurch by a new motorway. It is proposed at present to construct the part of that motorway which will be a by-pass of Wycombe before that part which will be a by-pass of Beaconsfield, and that has, naturally, caused a good deal of disquiet in my constituency.

Because I heard about that rumour, I put a Question on 15th May to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport asking that the part which would by-pass Beaconsfield should be constructed so as to be open to traffic at the same time as the part which by-passes Wycombe. The answer I got was that this could not be done because the preparations for the Wycombe by-pass section of the motorway were in a more advanced stage than those for the part which would by-pass Beaconsfield. The nautical component of the joint Parliamentary Secretary ship added for good measure that not all things could be done at the same time.

With that as a general proposition I am in entire agreement. But some things can be done at the same time, and I remain unconvinced that there is any insuperable problem in arranging that the first stage of work on the Denham—Stokenchurch motorway should terminate not on the west side of Beaconsfield as at present proposed but on the east side of it. It must be intended to provide an access to the new motorway from Beaconsfield, and I understand that a route for that access road somewhat to the east of Beaconsfield has already been considered. It is at present intended that there should be an access road to the motorway from west of Beaconsfield, and under the existing plan of construction that access road will be the tem- porary end of the Wycombe by-pass, is there really any great difficulty in using instead, for that purpose of a temporary end of the by-pass, the next access road proposed further east? That is all that I am asking myhon. Friend tonight to have done for me.

I should, of course, like the whole motorway to be built at the same time and that all my constituents should enjoy this benefit simultaneousy; but I see the difficulty about that. The plans for the Wycombe part are further advanced than the rest. A small extension of the first stage should be practicable without any important delay of the first stage, but if all were to be done together, then there might be a major delay. In fact, by-passing Beaconsfield would avoid the worst disadvantage of opening the Wycombe by-pass in isolation.

It is true that traffic on A.40 between Denham and the point east of Beaconsfield at which the by-pass would then end would still be greatly increased by the construction of the by-pass, but at least at Gerrards Cross the road does not actually run through the centre of the village, and the pedestrian bridge which I am happy to know is to be built this year will give relief to pedestrians waiting to cross A.40. At Denham the dualling of the carriageway up Red Hill is actually starting now. But at Beaconsfield, if there is an interval between completion of the Wycombe by-pass and the completion of the Beaconsfield bypass, the position will be desperate.

I want my hon. Friend to realise thatA.40 is already very heavily loaded, much more heavily loaded through Buckinghamshire than the Great West Road, A.4. On both the eastern and the western approaches to Beaconsfield it has an undivided 30 ft carriageway. To carry its present traffic load it should, according to the Ministry of Transport standard requirements in Circular 780, be a dual carriageway with three lanes in each direction. That, of course, is why the whole road is going to be bypassed by a motorway. Of course, in those conditions the present accident record is appalling. It could not be otherwise. I gave the figures to the Minister on 15th May and will not repeat them. The fact is that this narrow ribbon of trunk road is simply bulging with a visibly swelling tide of traffic, swelling from month to month. And for those who live beside it and have to cross it on their ordinary daily occasions it is truly a menace.

The position of pedestrians trying to cross it was described by the Minister of Transport himself in March last year when I had an Adjournment debate on the subject, and he said that from his own personal experience of A.40 when traffic was very heavy it was almost terrifying there. He said this in the debate on 20th March, 1962, reported in Volume 656 of Hansard, c. 355. I give my hon. Friend these details so that he may be in a position to observe his own Minister's words.

What was almost terrifying in March, 1962, is quite terrifying in June, 1963. It will be worse in 1964. And when the by-pass is opened it will be beyond description. Wycombe is the major discouragement for anyone wanting to use A.40.

On 15th May this year the other joint Parliamentary Secretary said when replying to me and saying "No." It is a feature of many road improvements that they give rise to traffic problems at each end."—[Official Report, 15th May, 1963; Vol. 677, c. 1297.] I agree with that. That is just what is worrying me and my constituents, more especially when we read about the problems at each end of M.2. So I cannot exaggerate the effect on Beaconsfield Old Town of the proposed partition of this work. I cannot exaggerate the anxiety that my constituents feel on the matter. There was presented to me yesterday a petition signed by nearly 2,000 people living in and around Beaconsfield which I shall transmit to the Minister after this debate.

I live in this area myself and I do not speak only on behalf of my constituents but from my own personal knowledge and belief in the matter. I ask my hon. Friend not to treat this matter as just another of these road cases. A.40 is not an ordinary road. It is one of the most heavily trafficked trunk roads in Britain. Beaconsfield Old Town is not an ordinary town but one of the most beautiful old towns or large villages in Britain.

The local authorities have made representations to the Minister about this. Almost every local organisation has written to me and I shall transmit these letters to the Minister. Their protest is supported by the Civic Trust and by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. I must tell my hon. Friend that I hope he is going to help me in this matter. It is more than a local matter because Beaconsfield Old Town itself is a place of national interest and because the frustration to through traffic on this road is going to be considerable unless something is done.

What I want is that the Beaconsfield part of the by-pass shall be constructed as one operation with the Wycombe bypass, that it shall not terminate just on the western side of Beaconsfield where the built-up part commences and which therefore is the worst part for a by-pass to end, but that it shall come out on the east side of Beaconsfield where the worst difficulties will be avoided.

I do not want to put my case in any other way, and if I cannot be given this for any reason which cannot be overcome, I shall be most unhappy; but the very least requirement which I put to my hon. Friend is that there should be the very least possible delay between the completion of these two sections of the by-pass.

I have also given him notice of another matter, and in the few minutes that remain to me I want to mention also the cognate question of the extension of the North Orbital Road at Denham. It leaves A.40 at Denham roundabout, or just after it, and will not be by-passed by the proposed new motorway, and there is the great problem of crossing the road.

I did not expect to have to raise this again in the House. I raised it in March, 1962, and thought, wrongly it appears, that there was a firm promise of a pedestrian underpass. I put down a Question on 20th May last and received a most disappointing answer from the Minister, who said that he did not consider a pedestrian subway at this site to be justified, but that he would be prepared to give a grant towards the cost of a pedestrian island.

That came as a great blow to the locality. Denham is a place where most people live on one side of the North Orbital Road, with the village and facilities on the other. People have to cross the road, and this is not a problem which will ever get less. The North Orbital Road will not be by-passed but expanded by a continuation southwards from Denham through Iver Heath over land which is already designated. Traffic will grow still more rapidly than in the past.

Schoolchildren have to cross the road from home to school and back. We cannot get crossing wardens for them because it is too dangerous. A traffic island would be ridiculous on a road of this busy-ness, with traffic going at speed despite the 40 miles an hour limit. An underpass or bridge has to come. A traffic island will not touch the problem for pedestrians, and it will be a danger to motorists.

I ask my hon. Friend to look at this again. There is great local feeling on this. I received a petition again about it today, signed by 450 people and sent in by Mr. Moir, the chairman of the parish council. There is tremendous disappointment that what was took for granted would be built in 1963 is now thrown into doubt. I ask my hon. Friend to look at this very carefully to see if what must come about in the end cannot be expedited for the benefit of the people of Denham.

10.52 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith)

My hon. Friend, when he was fortunate in the ballot, chose as his subject for debate the construction of a motorway by-pass at Beaconsfield. He has, however, not confined his remarks to this subject but has also raised the question of an underpass. I do not complain about his extension of the subject, since these two matters are really only instances of the general problem he brought before the House a little over a year ago in the debate he has referred to.

At that time he initiated a valuable and interesting debate on the difficulties which face those living in towns and villages situated on our great arterial roads because of the ever-increasing volume of motor traffic on them.

This is a problem of which my right hon. Friend is very conscious. My hon. Friend has referred to words my right hon. Friend used in that debate and I think those show that my right hon. Friend is aware and conscious of the problem. On his behalf I can say that we appreciate my hon. Friend's constructive approach to this difficult matter. He is very knowledgeable on this subject and most assiduous in seeing that we in the Ministry are constantly kept aware of his constituents'strong—and, I think, rightly strong—feelings on these matters.

In the first section of his speech my hon. Friend referred to us not proposing to extend the High Wycombe by-pass almost immediately we have completed it so as to by-pass Beaconsfield as well. He wishes this to be done in one operation. As I am sure the House will realise, however, pressures of this kind are very common, because new by-passes sometimes intensify traffic difficulties on the roads on either side of the sector that has been relieved. My hon. Friend was told that by my other half—if I may so describe the other Parliamentary Secretary—and I hope that he will take it from the two of us that this is indeed so. But it is not possible to tackle everything at once, since our resources of manpower and money, although much larger than they were, are not unlimited. Unfortunately, I have noticed that hon. Members recognise this in theory but never think that it applies to their own road or problem. I can understand that, as a local Member, but I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate the difficulties in which the Ministry is placed.

Inevitably we have to work out priorities over the country as a whole, and there are many desirable—and, indeed, urgent—schemes competing to be implemented as soon as possible. The extension of the High Wycombe by-pass eastwards to the Denham roundabout, which my hon. Friend wants advanced together, is a very good example of these.

I am firmly convinced that we must build the High Wycombe by-pass as soon as possible, and I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend is not suggesting any delay here, in order that the whole length may be improved later as one operation. But before I go into detail I would like to remind the House what the present position is.

The proposed High Wycombe by-pass is 13½ miles long. It is planned to start at Stokenchurch, sweep in a broad loop across open country south of High Wycombe and the built-up areas on either side of it, and terminate temporarily at a point on the western outskirts of Beaconsfield, near Burkes Road. The statutory and technical processes are well advanced, and we hope to start work in the spring of 1964. In that case the whole of the by-pass should be opened by about the end of 1966.

This will represent the culmination of many years of planning and several years of detailed work, and bring to fruition aspirations which date back to the 1930s, for it was as long ago as this that the need for relieving this serious bottleneck was first felt. On the other hand, pressure of traffic on the A.40 between Denham and Beaconsfield has become serious only much more recently. A detailed survey has been conducted, and the House will know from my right hon. Friend's recent announcement that a suggested line for a seven-mile motorway between Burkes Road in Beaconsfield and the Denham roundabout, across open country south of Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross, is now being informally considered by the district councils affected. It should be possible to publish a draft scheme during the next three months.

But, as my hon. Friend knows, this must be laid open to objections, and if there are any they will then have to be carefully scrutinised. In the light of this scrutiny and, if necessary, after a public inquiry, my right hon. Friend will then make a decision about the line. It is only at this stage that we can begin the elaborate work of detailed design and land acquisition on which letting a contract depends, so there is obviously a good deal of work ahead, and with the best will in the world an immediate start is quite impossible. My hon. Friend probably recognises this difficulty.

But, having said that, I want to tell him that, subject to the availability of funds and to the successful and prompt completion of all the preliminary processes that I have indicated, I would hope that work on the Beaconsfield—Denham by-pass would be ready to start in 1967, or perhaps 1968. I am sure that the House will understand that it is impossible for me to give any firmer undertaking than this. But it is clear that if my tentative forecast proves correct we cannot hope to complete the by-pass of Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross until at least three years after the completion of the High Wycombe bypass. I am afraid that that is a fact which must be faced.

Although it is true that the whole road needs by-passing from Stokenchurch to Denham, I think that it is right for us to have treated this operation in two parts. I have three reasons for saying that this is so. In the first place, traffic conditions on A.40 between Stokenchurch and Burkes Road, despite what my hon. Friend said about the other part, are much worse than they are between Burkes Road and the Denham roundabout. Secondly, recent accident statistics are lower on the eastern section than on the western section. Thirdly, the situation on the Burkes Road—Denham section during the three to four year gap which I have mentioned, while admittedly likely to be difficult at times, will be no worse than is common in many other places elsewhere.

I realise that what I have said is not much consolation, but it should show my hon. Friend's constituents that they are not being treated less sympathetically than other parts of the country. I appreciate that they wish to be treated better than other parts of the country, but I am afraid that I cannot do that. I do not want to go into the details of the comparable conditions in the two sectors of the road in respect of volume of traffic or accident figures, because there is no argument about this. If there is, I will send my hon. Friend details.

May I consider in greater detail the important point which my hon. Friend raised about the conditions on the eastern sector after the by-pass of Wycombe has been completed? I agree with him that the High Wycombe by-pass will generate some extra traffic between Burkes Road and the Denham roundabout, but I do not expect this to add more than about 12 per cent. to the natural increases which will take place during this period in any case. As a result of moving the junction of the by-pass further east from Knaves Road, where it was originally intended to go, to Burkes Road, those living on what I describe as the western outskirts of Beaconsfield should not suffer in the way that my hon. Friend has described. It is, however, quite impossible to move the junction further east still without carrying out the whole of the second section of the by-pass which, as I have explained, because of the statutory processes cannot be done at this stage.

The traffic situation in Beaconsfield itself naturally concerns my hon. Friend and his constituents. I can tell him that we in the Ministry are very well aware of the problem and that the divisional road engineer is now examining in detail what temporary traffic control measures can be taken in the town. I undertake to let my hon. Friend know the details of what is proposed as soon as I get them.

We must recognise that there will be times, as there are now, when for short periods the traffic in Beaconsfield will be very heavy. The elimination of these peak difficulties which exist all over the country, and not merely at Beaconsfield, is a long-term business. Sometimes they are aggravated by the creation of a new by-pass or by the improvement, as here, of one section of a road, one half of a road, which is all to be done eventually. But if we made it a rule that improvements should never be done in sections or that a new by-pass should never, even for a time, feed its traffic into a built-up area a little beyond its terminus, we should not be able to do what I believe is right—and that is to deal with the really bad bottlenecks throughout the country, such as Wycombe, on their own as quickly as we can and then, as funds and resources allow, link these by-passes to further improvements on less bad sections of the road.

I am sure that it is the right policy—in spite of what my hon. friend said—to improve roads in stages as we are doing here, but I fully agree with his view that we ought to do all that we can to minimise the gap, and I can assure him that as far as Beaconsfield is concerned—in spite of what he may think—we are working vigorously towards that end. I hope that this will be some slight satisfaction to him and to his hard-pressed constituents.

I think that I have time to turn to the second point raised by my hon. Friend, which is an entirely different matter. This is his plea for a pedestrian subway on the North Orbital Road at Den- ham. My hon. Friend raised this matter before in the Adjournment debate to which I have already referred. On that occasion my right hon. Friend the Minister replied. I am afraid that no more than he can I respond to the persuasive arguments which my hon. Friend has advanced tonight, and I do not suppose that my hon. Friend will be really surprised to hear that. Because I say this it does not mean that we do not understand how my hon. Friend's constituents feel. We understand that very well, because we get similar requests from other places which feel exactly the same as my hon. Friend's constituents do.

I want to stress that our inability to help does not mean that we do not understand or that we are not sympathetic. This is sometimes felt in the areas affected. After the last occasion on which my hon. Friend raised this matter with my right hon. Friend, the Buckingham County Council, as highway authority, made an application for grant to meet the cost of a subway in this position. The cost was estimated to be £21,600. Towards this the Ministry's grant would have been £16,200. On receipt of this application from the county council, and in view of all that my hon. Friend had said in the previous debate, the county council's proposals were given especially careful consideration. As a first step, the divisional road engineer asked the county council to carry out a census of traffic at this point. This showed that the volume of traffic was not excessively heavy. Our investigations indicate that there is not an unreasonable delay before pedestrians can cross the road. Furthermore, the accident rate, again in spite of what my hon. Friend says, confirms this fact. The figures are as follows: 1 fatal, 2 seriously injured, and 3 slightly injured over the period July, 1959, to January, 1962.

Therefore, neither on grounds of necessity nor safety does the situation appear to make a subway absolutely necessary. This is not the same thing as saying that a subway would not be desirable, but in this sort of case we had to consider whether the expenditure of our funds on a subway here was justified when we knew that there were other even more pressing claims on our limited resources. As the House will realise, everybody thinks that their claims are the most pressing and that their cases are the hardest. If we had allocated even this £16,000 for a subway here, some other more important job would be delayed.

I realise that this must all sound rather negative to my hon. Friend, but I hope that I have shown him that we realise that there is a problem. Indeed, as he said, my right hon. Friend told him on 20th May, in answer to a Question, that we would be prepared to give a grant towards the cost of a pedestrian island. At the moment, as my hon. Friend probably knows, the divisional road engineer has asked the county council to prepare a scheme in detail to provide for a widening of the carriageway, improvement of the junction, and the provision of refuges at strategic points on the road. We are awaiting these plans and the estimates, and although this may not be, and indeed obviously is not, after listening to what my hon. Friend said, all he wants, in spite of what he said it will be a very considerable help to his constituents.

Ideally, I suppose, all busy roads should have subways, even if they were scarcely used at all, but when money is short and when there is so much to be done that is more urgent, I am afraid that, for the time being at any rate, a subway at Denham cannot be justified, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we will reconsider the matter most sym-the position deteriorates substantially we will re-consider the matter most sympathetically. I hope that this will be some consolation, both to my hon. Friend and to his constituents.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Eleven o'clock.