HC Deb 13 November 1968 vol 773 cc572-82

11.31 p.m.

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

Mr. E. Rowlands (Cardiff, North)

Tonight I am chiefly concerned with phase one of the Cardiff primary road programme—the proposed Hook Road, approved by the Cardiff City Council on 4th November, which my right hon. friend the Secretary of State will now be asked to approve and finance 75 per cent. of its cost.

But this is only a part of the blitz on the city's housing as a result of road proposals. In fact, 1,500 houses will fall under the Hook Road scheme and another 1,800 under phase two of the primary road programme, quite apart from many homes in areas such as the central ward, which will be required for secondary roads, homes in Llandaff and Gabalfa for the Llantrisant radial road, and in Cathays where the university expansion plan is expected to destroy more housing. Only the Hook Road scheme has so far been made public.

In the face of the scientific and technical authority of road planners, city engineers and the like, it is difficult to oppose what is thought to be progress. Roads, it seems, are always considered progress, and it is easy to brand those who oppose the road plan as Luddites—opponents of progress. I personally utterly reject this attitude. People worried about the effect of roads on their homes and lives and on their neighbourhoods are not Luddites. Their evidence—the hardship, the worries and the fears—should be a part, and indeed a very big part, in the balance sheet when totals on the credit and debit sides for this programme are totted up.

I cannot convey in so short a time as is available to me this evening the innumerable personal hardship cases which I have heard over the last few weeks as a result of this road programme by the Cardiff City Corporation. There is the effect which these proposals have had upon the very many elderly people living in the area. For example, Mr. Davies of Penywain Road wrote to me: In this house we are four persons aged from 64 to 81, three of whom have lived here for 60 years and who view with horror the thought of having to move at this stage of our lives. I took seriously the threat of a 70-year-old lady who said at the week-end, with all the conviction she could raise, that she would put her head in the gas oven rather than accept this change. I share the bitterness of the couple who only a month or so ago bought a house in Shirley Road, now to be demolished. I appreciate what it will mean to many families in the area where ties of kinship are strong, where mothers and married daughters could be scattered to different parts of the city although now they live close together.

I understand the cruel irony of the situation in which Mrs. Murphy, of Kincraig Street, finds herself. She writes: We were council house tenants for twenty years but it was always my ambition to have our own place. She did that 12 months or so ago. She now finds that the dream of her life will be shattered by the demolition proposed by this programme. She wrote to me: Yes, I advocate progress, but not at the expense of the individual. I am only an ordinary housewife and please accept my apologies if I have expressed myself inadequately, but believe me there is a black cloud hanging over our heads. Mrs. Murphy and many others who have written to me and spoken to me on this matter in the last few weeks have expressed perfectly well their feelings, anxieties and worries about the proposed Hook Road scheme. They have asked the inevitable questions and justifiable demands, such as, "What will happen to us? Where shall we live? How do we know this road is really needed? Has it priority over our homes? Are there no alternatives? The council has not explained anything to us. It has not given us a chance to put our case and has not given the people a chance to decide." The questions are simple ones; these demands are straightforward; but they are vital ones which the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Undersecretary should be asking and considering before approving this road programme submitted to them by Cardiff Corporation.

Nothing has angered the people more than the way in which the whole programme has been handled. Not until 23rd October did people find out that their properties were involved and lay in the shadow of this road. The Council announced the proposed destruction of 1,500 homes and, yet within a fortnight, on 4th November, approved their destruction. It is said that a week or a fortnight in politics is a long time, but it is no time at all to discuss and approve the destruction of 1,500 homes. Even now, a week or so after the decision—and I asked about it on Monday—not a single document or diagram or map has been placed in the city's central library. People are truly thankful for the valiant information service provided by the two local newspapers, the Western Mail and particularly the South Wales Echo, for without them many people would still be in the dark about these proposals.

Only recently this House and Parliament passed a Town and Country Planning Act which wrote into our law the principle of public participation. That part of the Act has been flagrantly ignored in this case. The Minister ought to reject these proposals and return them to Cardiff Corporation and say that he is not satisfied that people affected, the citizens of Cardiff, had sufficient opportunity to express their views before the Council made its final decision. Of course, everyone recognised that there should be generous provision during the period for those whose homes were blighted and who wish to move urgently.

It should also be noted that even now only half the story has been told. The Council has chosen to keep secret one half of the primary road programme, despite the confusion caused over blight and the chaos which exists in our housing market in Cardiff at the moment. My right hon. Friend could help by encouraging the Corporation to publish the full plan. Will he do so?

There have been many reports in the Press, and substantial ones, that the Corporation is confident of receiving automatic and immediate endorsement of the programme. I trust, in view of what I am saying this evening, that that will be the last thing that will be done. I should like the Minister to give a categorical assurance that the Welsh Office has given no commitment to approve this programme, that no such nod and a wink has or will be given till the total effect of the programme, and the alternatives, have been exhaustively considered. I would like my hon. Friend to give that assurance this evening.

I believe the City Corporation has not even begun to count the social cost involved. I need not emphasise to my hon. Friend the serious situation of our housing in Cardiff. He made a speech on this very subject only recently. Only 52 of the 1,500 houses involved in this programme are in the present slum clearance scheme. Some 550 are obsolescent, leaving 1,000 which would have lasted as homes for a generation to come. Of the 550 obsolescent ones, many would have benefited from the new modernisation grants proposed in the White Paper on converting older houses into new homes. I need not go into how serious our housing problem is at the moment. The ordinary waiting list is growing and is now to be swollen by the many made homeless by these roads. Many will be elderly people who will be unable to obtain equivalent homes and will be unable to raise mortgages. We shall be destroying a large number of inexpensive houses and throwing people back to the mercy of the Council. They will revert from being owner-occupiers to being council house tenants.

I do not believe that the social cost of the road programme has been taken into account, but I plead with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, when he looks at the road programme, to take into account the social cost, not merely the technical costs of building the road but the real costs to the community as well.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the priorities and the need for this road have been questioned very seriously in the City of Cardiff. Why has this road such a priority? Questions have been asked but have not yet been fully answered. It is not surprising, because there are very serious and reasoned differences of opinion even amongst those who approve and support the Buchanan proposals for the city.

I do not play on these differences too much, but they should be considered seriously. The city planning officer questioned in his report to the council both the timing and the phasing of the programme of one piece of the proposed Hook Road, involving 500 houses. I shall not quote all his contribution to the General Purposes Committee on 22nd October—I am sure my hon. Friend has a copy—but I want to quote one section. He said: This route should, in short, be constructed as part of a larger redevelopment of urban revitalisation process, not as a simple highway in its own right. I believe that that comment is pertinent to the whole programme now proposed by the Cardiff Corporation. He also raised in his own statement the cost of the road, and whether such a heavy expenditure could be borne by the Welsh Office and the local authority—because after all, the Government will have to pay 75 per cent. of the cost of the road programme.

Will my hon. Friend therefore tell me how much money is allocated in the Welsh Office's forward programme for Cardiff's primary roads? What is the Welsh Office's estimate of the cost of the primary roads programme in Cardiff over the next five years? These are vital questions and the Minister must spell them out urgently. There is so much agony and anxiety that if it is all for naught, if this scheme is financially unrealistic during the time mentioned by the Corporation, the Minister should say so.

Nevertheless the basic question on everybody's lips in Cardiff is whether this road—a six-lane urban motorway carving through the centre and heart of the city is necessary and needed at this time. People are not convinced. They demand much greater proof than has so far been provided. It is not surprising that they demand more proof, because even such a distinguished authority as Professor Peter Hall is not convinced. In a recent letter to me he wrote: The case for each motorway has to be made. I am not sure from my own reading of the Buchanan Report, that the case was ever made here. Very much depends on what size the central area is supposed to be. But the plans for the central area have not yet come before the Council, and are certainly not known to the public. Decisions on the size and development of the central area would have a profound effect on thinking on this road, as on other road proposals by Professor Buchanan.

Even more fundamental questions than this are now being asked in the City of Cardiff, as in other cities, about the efficacy of the urban motorway as a solution to traffic problems in our cities. Town planning theory has been changing; moving away from the urban motorway concept. There is growing recognition that however much one tries to accommodate the motor car it will demand more and more of our cities and demand more and more people's homes.

The case was raised recently by Professor Peter Hall in a New Society article. He wrote: These motorways, sometimes elevated, sometimes depressed in trenches, are being constructed through the most amazing scenes of devastation ever witnessed by the people of England. The Luftwaffe never achieved anything like it. What is happening in the name of planning, therefore, is the complete destruction of a landscape, and of a tradition of building which made English cities different from other cities. English cities, even when they were slummy, had certain specific qualities: they consisted of little, low houses which had a certain domesticity of scale and of feeling. The planners, in their wisdom, took a conscious decision some years ago to destroy this landscape, its scale and quality. It is such an extraordinary decision that one needs to ask why… The citizens of Cardiff are asking the reason why. Have we actualy looked, for example, at the question of the rôle of public transport? We do not enjoy the best transport systems in Cardiff, despite the efforts of the staff concerned. One finds this part of the Buchanan Report for Cardiff the least satisfactory.

There has been no real study of public transport potential and development as is increasingly being done in other cities, no concept of separation of public and private transport attached to a policy of "park and ride". One cannot help feeling that this is a car-dominated solution. It may be that the majority of citizens faced with the choice of urban motorways or a much greater restriction on the use of cars would choose the latter to save the homes and character of our city.

I conclude, not on a parochial note but on a fundamental general point. I think that there are fundamental issues involved in the choice. Two capital cities, Cardiff and London, are faced with major investment programmes on roads—a blitz on their housing of war-time proportions both in area and of housing shortage. Both will have to make decisions about the future of the environment, quality of life and setting the seal on the environment of citizens for a generation or two to come.

In both cities there is a growing revolt by citizens against the ravages of road plans, motorways and the rest. This coincides with equally deep questioning by planners and non-planners on the future of our cities and the movement away from a car-dominated solution towards a city for people not for the car. Therefore what may seem to my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State as a particular decision about a particular town within their jurisdiction is something greater. That is why I plead with my hon. Friend, as I have pleaded unsuccessfully with the City Council, that before any decision is taken he will stop and think of the issues at stake. The growing number of citizens in Cardiff are calling for a halt and a re-examination of this and other road proposals for the city. I think they are right and just in their demand and I hope my hon. Friend and the Secretary of State will heed their plea.

11.48 p.m.

The Under Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ifor Davies)

I take the first opportunity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, of extending to you my congratulations on your promotion to your important office and wish you well. I do so with particular pleasure, having regard to our previous co-operation in other offices.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. E. Rowlands) has shown again tonight his deep concern for the well-being of his constituents. I congratulate him on initiating this Adjournment debate which provides an opportunity to discuss the primary road programme for Cardiff. I assure him that I appreciate and understand that such far-reaching proposals are inevitably of considerable public interest not least among those who will be directly affected by the roads when they are built. I certainly do not talk of them as Luddites.

I must say in fairness that, following the Buchanan proposals, the City Council made substantial efforts to inform the people in the city of the proposals and about the priority road schemes likely to affect them. They will continue those efforts and are also considering how to give wider publicity to the effect of the longer term schemes. This is clear in the Probe Study Report published in the spring of 1966 and again in the main Report published in May this year. I quote a sentence or two from the main Report: Over the next few months the City Council will be considering the Report but before they reach a decision the views of the citizens of Cardiff will be taken into account. Thereafter the Study, as amended following public discussion and consultation, will be used as a basis for the review of the Development Plan which will include plans to show how and in what stages the proposals can be implemented. As my hon. Friend is aware, the roads in the Buchanan Report fall into three main categories. I want to deal first with the category which consists of the primary distributors, as it is these roads which are the main subject of this debate.

The City Council has formally adopted what is called the "hook road" as part of its first priority programme. This consists of the Caerphilly Radial, the Central Primary and part of the Southern Primary from Thornhill to Penarth Road at the River Taff. By formally adopting this road on to its programme the Council has ensured that owner-occupiers who otherwise qualify and whose houses are on the line of this road have a statutory right if they wish to sell their houses to require the City to buy them.

I will say something in a moment about the people whose houses border the road but whose property will not have to be acquired for the road to be built.

Next, there are the longer-term primary distributor roads. These are the Barry Radial, the Western Tangential, the Penarth Radial, the rest of the Southern Primary, the Pengam Link, and the Castle Park Primary.

It is for the City to decide what steps to take to safeguard the routes of these roads and to deal with problems of planning blight to which they might give rise. In arriving at its decision in relation to these roads, the City Council will no doubt wish to have regard to the statement in paragraph 321, the final paragraph of the main Buchanan Report, which points out that planning is a continuing process and that it would be a mistake to imagine that the recommendations in the Report are "once and for all". New circumstances will arise from time to time requiring modification of the plan.

So while the Council naturally and rightly want the planning process to look as far ahead as possible, it is necessary to cover a shorter time scale in relation to the preparation of active road construction. In this respect, whilst the City Council has formally adopted the "hook road", it will still have to decide what legal procedures it is to adopt to get the line of the road established.

This will be a most important decision, because at one or more of the stages in these legal procedures the public must have the right to object, to make their views known, and the City will have to justify its proposal.

In taking this decision the Council will, I am quite sure, wish to consider very carefully the remarks made by my hon. Friend in introducing this discussion about taking into account the effect of its decisions on those affected—I listened with interest to my hon. Friend's references—and also to recall the aspirations so eloquently voiced in its own Forewords to the published studies.

At this stage my right hon. Friend will have statutory responsibilities under the appropriate planning, highway and compulsory purchase order procedures, to consider objections to the city's proposals and to decide whether to confirm its various statutory orders.

The Secretary of State must therefore keep a completely open mind on the detailed merits of Cardiff's proposals and on the suitability of the route it has chosen for the road until the papers reach him officially in the course of the implementation of the statutory procedures by Cardiff.

I must make it clear, therefore, that all that I have said must be entirely without prejudice to the Secretary of State's duties and obligations under the relevant legislation.

I want now to say a word about the houses which are just off the line of proposed roads. Under present legislation compensation is payable only in respect of plots of land which are actually acquired for road construction. I think it would be broadly true to say that most householders near the proposed roads will not be entitled to claim compensation. I know that this is a matter which is giving rise to some concern. On 8th November my right hon. Friend received a deputation from householders, led by my hon. Friend, who urged a change in the existing legislation. All I can say on that is that the Government are aware of the problem and have it under study; but it is not a problem which can be quickly or easily removed.

I come now to some of the specific questions which my hon. Friend put to me. He asked how much money was allocated in the Welsh Office for the forward programme for Cardiff's primary roads. The answer is that the principal road preparation list contains a figure of £3 million described as being for first priority primary distributor schemes in the redevelopment of the Central Area of the City. I give an assurance that both my right hon. Friend and I fully realise that there are rapidly increasing traffic problems in this area.

Next, my hon. Friend asked what was the Welsh Office's estimate of the cost of the primary road programme in Cardiff over the next five years. The answer is that this is not a matter for the Welsh Office. It is up to Cardiff to give the estimates based on its detailed investigations.

The roads covered by the Buchanan Report fall into another two categories: first, there are the trunk roads, for which the Secretary of State is the highway authority. These are Eastern Avenue, the Llantrisant radial, the M4 link, and the M4 outer by-pass of Cardiff itself. Work on the Gabalfa interchange is now starting, and work on Eastern Avenue should start towards the end of next year. The next stage in the Eastern Avenue scheme will be the making of a compulsory purchase order.

The Secretary of State's draft order was published on 28th October last. If there are objections, the Secretary of State will hold a public inquiry, and in the light of this public inquiry he will decide whether to make the order as advertised or in a modified form. If any houses are at present blighted by the Eastern Avenue proposals, owner-occupiers who qualify under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, have a statutory right to require the Secretary of State to buy their properties now.

As regards the Llantrisant radial road, the Secretary of State is appointing consultants to investigate the line in detail and he will in due course publish a draft order under Section 7 of the Highways Act to fix the line of the road. There will be the usual provision for objections, and, if necessary, a public inquiry. Until the line of this road has been fixed by order, owner-occupiers who wish to sell their houses do not have a statutory right to require the Secretary of State to buy them, but in any cases of hardship the Secretary of State will consider applications on their merits. The Secretary of State will also be considering whether any special steps will be necessary to announce the effect which the road might have on properties along its line, and when any announcement can best be made.

Finally, there are the local distributor roads such as the Canton distributor, the Central distributor, the Merthyr radial and the Castle Park distributor. Responsibility for these roads rests entirely with the City.

I conclude in this way. All of us who live in Wales will want to see Cardiff developed as a worthy capital for the Principality. The City Council and the people of Cardiff have a tremendous task before them in adapting the city to meet the needs of the future. But it is also a time of tremendous opportunity. With good will and co-operation all round, I am confident that these tasks can and will be achieved.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Twelve o'clock.