HC Deb 09 December 1966 vol 737 cc1829-40

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

4.2 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Bristol, Central)

In raising the question of the public transport position in Bristol, I deliberately refer to the "decline" of public transport in the city since at one time Bristol had a fairly adequate public transport system, which was then a mixture of trams, local railways and buses. Bristol's trams have long since gone, the local rail services are unfortunately being largely abandoned and the buses of the city have ever greater difficulty in maintaining an adequate service to the public.

I do not suggest that, fundamentally, the traffic problems of Bristol are different from those of other large provincial cities or of London. In Bristol the bus services are operated by a company which ultimately is publicly owned and controlled through the transport holdings organisation and these services are being physically smothered and financially eroded by the all-conquering private motor car, a common problem in most large cities.

However, the Bristol situation has some special features. For example, there is a tremendously large daily flow in and out of Bristol by road vehicles and, size for size, there is probably a greater car commuter traffic coming into Bristol in the mornings and going out in the evenings than is the case in other provincial cities. It is sometimes said that this is due to Bristol having a prosperous hinterland around the city, with many people owning cars, but whether or not this is the case I do not know. As I say, there is a considerable flow of traffic inwards in the morning and out at night. Another special feature is the nature of the city. It is a beautiful and ancient city, with an involved system of docks and waterways right in its centre and close around the city are hills.

The latest estimate is that about 9,000 cars commute in and out daily. They carry between them about 13,500 people. British Railways at Temple Meads handles 20,000 passengers daily in and out. Six hundred buses serving the city carry about 340,000 passengers daily. although this number is tending to decline. It will be seen that the public services still do the bulk of the work in Bristol in the transport of passengers, but they are obliged to do so at a lower level of efficiency than was once the case.

I have talked to those concerned with running the bus undertaking. It is accepted that at peak times between one-third and one-half of the buses regularly run behind schedule. Some delays are astonishing. If there was time I could quote from the batch of letters I have received on this subject from Bristol's citizens. To be fair to the bus managers, they are just as much concerned about delays as anyone else. They have carried out their own expert checks. Recently it took a bus nearly three-quarters of an hour to travel from the Red Lion in Knowle, which is in my constituency in the centre of the city, to Temple Meads station. The scheduled time is nine minutes. One could walk the distance almost in that time.

It is a regular occurrence in the rush hour for buses to take about 30 minutes to travel from the centre of the city to Temple Meads, which is a distance which any reasonably active person could walk in about 10 minutes. All these delays are reflected right to the outskirts of the city, where people waiting for buses for long periods cannot see the central congestion which makes their bus late.

The bus management is well aware of the public's increasing frustration and irritation. There is undoubtedly a great loss of local efficiency due to people being late for work and being late arriving home after work. Until recently, Bristol's buses were badly under-manned, but this situation is now being remedied, I am told. There was a time when much overtime had to be worked. Crews were late. Buses were taken off. All this aggravated matters because in these circumstances more and more people take to cars.

The city council is greatly concerned about the public transport position. Within the powers available to it, it has taken energetic steps. It has set up a joint committee with the bus company to do all it can to improve matters. This has had a beneficial effect up to a point. Running schedules have been revised. The system of crew reliefs has been re-examined. There has been full co-operation with the Transport and General Workers' Union on this revision. New methods of radio communication have been introduced. There is now a new city centre bus service. I believe that experiments are to be made, if they have not already been made, on an express bus service.

I have tried to talk to everyone concerned. I have talked to my friends at the Transport and General Workers' Union. Whoever may be to blame for this state of affairs—perhaps no one as such is to blame; these are just the modern facts of life with heavy traffic in large cities—the bus crews are not to blame. They make gallant efforts to get their buses through in extremely difficult and trying circumstances.

I have here a letter from the Transport and General Workers' Union in Bristol, of which I should like to read two or three sentences: As the … Secretary dealing with Passenger Transport, I would suggest that one of the main problems which the busmen in Bristol have to contend with, is the chaotic traffic conditions which prevail during the peak periods, and that a traffic free lane should be kept for bus services in all streets which are capable of carrying two lanes of traffic in one direction. Alternatively, in peak periods certain routes could be turned into one-way streets, e.g., in the morning all traffic would move in one direction on the inward journey and at night, that same ruote would be carrying traffic to proceed in the outward direction. I do feel that one can expect more from the company and their employees than they are doing, and feel it is the responsibility of someone in the Ministry of Transport to do something nationally. That is an opinion from Bristol and it is why I have raised this matter on the Adjournment.

I know that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary may feel that there is still something of an administrative nature that could be done locally, but I feel that we need more information from the Ministry telling us what his right hon. Friend proposes to do in the near future and in the long term, to assist the local authority, the transport operators and the transport workers to maintain essential public services in large cities such as Bristol.

I want to leave adequate time for my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to reply and so I shall try to be brief with my own proposals. I would summarise them in two groups—first of all, short-term remedies which need very urgent attention. I should like to see free-ways for buses as mentioned by my friend in the Transport and General Workers' Union. Also energetic steps must now be taken in Bristol and elsewhere to avoid loading and unloading by lorries in busy streets, this double banking. As something of a student of Roman history, I remember that Julius C2esar had this problem in ancient Rome, where there was also a tremendous volume of traffic. Of course, it consisted not of lorries but of horse-drawn transport, presumably carts, chariots and so on. He dealt with the problem by compelling all commercial traffic coming into the city of ancient Rome to do so at night. I feel that might be a little too drastic in this country, but this is the kind of remedy which in the end will have to be considered in relation to parked commercial traffic loading and unloading.

There is in addition a crying need in Bristol to keep bus stops clear of parked vehicles. Regulations are urgently required to prohibit vehicles parking within, say, 30 ft. of bus stops.

Now I move to the long-term solutions. but I should like to observe in passing that when we talk of long-term solutions we should remember that they very soon become short-term needs, because with the passing of time the situation becomes rapidly worse. If we are to have long-term solutions we have got to start on them fairly soon. The ideas to which I should like to have an answer are as follows. First, there is a crying need for cities like Bristol to have their public transport services planned as a whole.

It is foolish for British Railways to close down suburban lines. It may do so because from its point of view the lines are not commercially viable, but it is wrong that they should be closed down when they could, perhaps, be integrated into a general regional transport system. If they were not operated by British Railways they could be operated by a city or regional transport authority. I have a list of the stations which have been closed in the busy centre of Bristol in the past few years: Brislington, Whit-church Halt, Ashley Hill, Horfield, Staple Hill, and Fishponds. They are all stations in populated areas.

It is now proposed to shut down fairly soon—I believe that it will be next year —the line from Bristol to Avonmouth, which serves about eight stations. I know that British Railways has its good commercial reasons for taking that action, but I cannot believe that all the national capital should be lost, and that it would not be possible to integrate those local rail systems into a regional transport organisation.

In Bristol, where there is a very fine city plan looking ahead to the seventies, eighties, and nineties—nearly into the next century—new roads of all kinds are being planned. Should not we again consider electric surface transport on special tracks, which could in integrated into ring roads in great cities? There are other novel methods of surface transport, such as the monorail. I believe that one was recently erected at Blackpool on a small scale. I am told that the first cost is fantastic, but so is the cost of new roads, and socially we must compare one cost with another.

As a motorist since early youth, I have no bias against the motor car. I enjoy motoring in spite of traffic congestion, which is more than many people can say. I regard the motor car as a great social emancipator. But I do not believe that there is anything incompatible in recognising the proper rôle of the motor car these days as a great social and practical benefit to human beings with keeping city centres as free of cars as possible, provided there are adequate car parking facilities on the outskirts of cities.

I should have thought that the future of transport in this country, particularly in relation to large cities, is not to see a conflict between the motor car and the public transport system but rather to see how the use of the motor car can be properly joined with the use of public transport services. I would like to know something of the Ministry's plans on that.

I have tried to be as brief as possible. I am raising the Bristol transport issue because I think that from the point of view of my constituents and the citizens of Bristol generally it is urgent. It also has wider implications, and I should like to hear from my hon. Friend what his Department now proposes to do about remedies.

4.19 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler)

It so happens that yesterday I had the chance of making a personal observation of the situation described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer). It was not for a very long time but nevertheless it was enlightening. I should like to take this opportunity, on behalf of myself and the staff of my Department, to put on record my gratitude to the Port of Bristol Authority for the excellent arrangements it made for my visit to Bristol yesterday, and for its very generous hospitality. My tour was extremely interesting and edifying.

My hon. Friend, who has been assiduous on this subject for some time, has raised a most important matter. He knows that the strengthening of public transport is one of the most important aims of the Government's policy. My right hon. Friend's White Paper published in July made this very clear, and demonstrated also that the problems involved are complex and need to be attacked from several angles.

Bristol is an important administrative and commercial centre, a focal point for much of Somerset and Gloucestershire, and it is now newly accessible from Wales via the Severn Bridge. I was given to understand yesterday that quite an influx of traffic is coming in on account of the opening of the Severn Bridge. Bristol attracts a large volume of traffic into a comparatively confined area, and, as my hon. Friend implied, it has the usual pattern of problems experienced by areas of congestion, with which we are trying to grapple and which, generally, are having the effect of hampering public services in urban areas.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, the bus services in Bristol are provided by the Bristol Omnibus Company, which is owned by the nationalised Transport Holding Company. The services are operated under an agreement between the company and Bristol City Council, and there is a joint committee of the city council and the company which deals with the pattern of services. They are responsible for providing the services, subject to licensing by the Traffic Commissioners, in the ordinary way.

The Bristol Omnibus Company has responsibilities over a fairly wide area of Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, and the undertaking is, we agree, suffering from the well known problems affecting bus operators all over the country, namely, traffic congestion and the staff shortage which so often goes with it. These factors in Bristol have led to a reduction in mileage of about 5 per cent. over the last year, and I understand that there has been a good deal of complaint expressed through my hon. Friend about the bus services there. I am told that the operators have now reorganised the services, with the approval of the Traffic Commissioners, with the aim of achieving reliability according to the published timetable. This means at present that the services are less frequent, but the company is trying to raise the standard of efficiency in this way, and it reports also that recruitment of manpower is improving.

Now, the question of congestion. The Bristol local authority the city council, is both the highway and the traffic authority. My hon. Friend will know that several road works are either in hand or planned, to which my right hon. Friend will be making a substantial contribution in the form of grants. I mention en passant the major schemes connected with the Cumberland Basin improvement and the roundabout and underpass at Old Market Street. Then there are the traffic management measures taken by the city council in, for example, the promotion of a parking meter zone, an extensive programme of waiting restrictions, and multi-storey car parks.

We very much want to encourage local highway and traffic authorities to experiment with, for example, special bus lanes and peak-hour and urban clearways. I say that in the context of the points which my hon. Friend raised with reference to giving priority to public services.

Hon. Members may have seen recently the second report on the special partnership which my right hon. Friend, together with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, has established with Leeds City Council. We are endeavouring there to carry out planned experiments in different measures of traffic management with the overall and over-riding purpose of giving priority to the movement of public transport. We hope that this work will be beneficial in the advice which we give on traffic management to cities like Bristol throughout the country. The Ministry is now exploring with the Leeds council all the problems arising from the analysis which has been made.

One point which clearly emerges from the discussions we have been having is the over-riding importance—my hon. Friend stressed this—of an integrated approach to the whole question of the planning of land use, the provision of public transport, road construction, parking and traffic management. All these things must be considered round the table together. It is abundantly clear also that cities wanting adequate public transport at peak hours must—as my hon. Friend said, this implies no opposition to the use of personal vehicles—be prepared to put restrictions on long-term parking in central areas. Without these measures, it simply cannot be done; it will prove physically impossible. As I have said, the Bristol Council has close links with the operation of public transport and my right hon. Friend is determined to give them in conjunction every possible encouragement to be bold in experimenting with new mea. sures of traffic control and new methods of priority for public transport.

My hon. Friend mentioned the closure of rail services. One important one to which I should refer in reply to him this

afternoon is the proposal of British Railways to withdraw the passenger services between Bristol and Severnside. That is one with which my hon. Friend is specially concerned. The Railways Board has told my right hon. Friend that it intends to publish notice of this proposal and she has considered whether it is one that is obviously unacceptable on account of planning considerations.

My right hon. Friend has consulted the South-West Economic Planning Council about this and she is today informing the Railways Board that there is no objection to proceeding with publication of the notice. I should, however, emphasise that this dons not mean that my right hon. Friend gas in any way made up her mind on the merits of the proposal. She has merely decided that it is a proposal that should go to the transport users' consultative committee and that there should be an inquiry about the hardship that is involved. There will be a further period in which the planning council can elaborate its views before, many months ahead, my right hon. Friend has to take a decision

Mr. Palmer

Will the planning council's views be published? Will we know them?

Mr. Swingler

We have not assumed the practice of publishing the views of the planning council s, although there is no objection to the planning council itself locally declaring its views on these issues. I have no doubt that in the course of the investigation views will be expressed about this by the Bristol Council as well as by the regional planning council and others. I assure my hon. Friend that all these matters will be considered before any decision on closure is taken.

My hon. Friend rightly emphasised the need for co-ordination of transport services. That is why my right hon. Friend has enlisted the aid of the regional economic planning councils to set up, which we are now engaged in doing, voluntary coordinating committees in all regions of the country to include representatives of the planning councils, transport operators, local authorities, users of transport and the unions.

I assure my hon. Friend that a transport co-ordinating committee of this character, representing people of that sort for the South-West region, will start work early next year. We hope in the very near future to announce names of the members and to get it started working as soon as possible. These committees will have the job immediately of studying existing transport arrangements in all their areas and advising those who are represented on the committee of ways and means to better co-ordination between different forms of transport, coordination of timetables, better traffic measures, better siting of car parks and arrangements for interchange facilities.

My right hon. Friend urged us in looking to the long term—and, as he rightly said, the long term is often quite short term in the development of the transport world—to be adventurous in our thinking. He mentioned the question of rapid transit systems like monorail. My hon. Friend will see what is said about this under the heading "Research" in the White Paper. I assure him that we are endeavouring to widen and broaden our research in the Ministry and also giving maximum encouragement to experimentation in this direction.

My hon. Friend will probably know that together with the Corporation of Manchester, we are engaged in a joint study of the feasibility there and costs of different kinds of rapid transport systems, including monorail. The consultants' and experts' report for the Manchester area, which, we hope, will be available in a few months' time, will nevertheless have important implications for other major towns like Bristol. Therefore, on the basis of this, it will be possible through the medium of these regional transport co-ordinating committees for the Bristol Corporation to discuss with others the possibility of establishing a system there. It is in this connection, and for the promotion of this that my right hon. Friend has brought forward proposals to be translated into legislation next year to make from State funds capital infrastructure grants for the modernisation of the techniques of transport.

We make it clear to all concerned, to operators of public transport and to local authorities, that these capital infrastructure grants to be given by the Government must be part of a comprehensive local transport plan. We want comprehensive local transport plans from all parts of the country arising out of the machinery we are setting up.

I hope, therefore, that I have been able to show my hon. Friend that we are moving along the lines that he suggested, and I hope also that what he has said here will be carefully noted by the highway and traffic authority and the operators of transport in the area he represents, so that, when the regional transport co-ordinating committee in the South West is established, these items will be immediately put on the agenda and steps taken in order to deal with them. I can assure my hon. Friend that my right hon. Friend will give him every possible encouragement and assistance in this respect.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Five o'clock.