HC Deb 24 May 1974 vol 874 cc843-54

3.31 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

I am grateful to have the opportunity to enlarge upon the proposed Aire Valley motorway, which is of great concern to many of my constituents. The motorway, if built, will run from the A6038 at Shipley to Snay-gill, near Skipton, a total of 13.2 miles, 10 miles of which is proposed as a four-lane motorway.

It is often said that the need for this proposed road is based on the West Yorkshire Transportation Study—a study that was itself defective because it was limited only to an examination of the growth of car transport.

In the minutes of evidence taken by the Expenditure Committee of the House on 26th June 1972, it was said that it may be advantageous not to embark on the conventional full scale land use transportation study but to set the more limited objectives on which information is needed for decision and then to design and survey which will accomplish that purpose. This was the method adopted in the West Yorkshire Transportation Study. It is clear from that evidence that no comprehensive transport study was undertaken. Now that we have a Department which covers land use as well as purely transport, a comprehensive transport study is needed and is more feasible. The data on which to make a sensible decision on this highly expensive project are simply not available.

Only recently, for instance, I asked the Minister three Questions. The Civil Service—presumably, the road construction unit at Harrogate—is apparently keeping the information that I requested a dark secret. I asked the Minister if he would publish the anticipated level of usage of the proposed Aire Valley motorway and the A650 and A629 in its presence. I asked the Minister if he would publish the anticipated level of new traffic generated by the proposed Aire Valley motorway. I also asked the Minister if he would publish the details of the anticipated impacts in terms of traffic and environmental implications of the linkup of the proposed Aire Valley motorway with the M62 via M606, the proposed Shipley-Kirkstall and Pudsey-Dishforth trunk roads. The reply was Traffic predictions will be provided as necessary in the statement of case for the road at any local public inquiry." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd May 1974; Vol. 874, c. 178-9.] I suggest that the expense involved in maintaining the road construction unit at Harrogate and the thousands of pounds that have been paid out already in compensation for land required along the route of the motorway does not justify secrecy and the retention of information which may assist in an informed debate about the motorway before a public inquiry is held.

The data which have been provided about the motorway are based on 1969 traffic flows, which show on one section a maximum of 18,101 vehicles in a 16-hour day. For the motorway which replaced the A4 in 1970, the comparable figure was 30,000 vehicles in a 12-hour period. It may be that the figure on the existing A629/A650 trunk road has increased. It would be nice to know whether that is so.

One of the things about which many of my constituents are concerned is the dishonest attempt being made, not by the Government but by the road construction unit at Harrogate, to present this road as a local road to relieve local traffic.

I received a letter only today from the Freight Transport Association Limited— an organisation designed to benefit its members and their private profits, and not the public good—in which it is said: The Association feels that the construction of the M650 will do much to relieve congestion along A650 through Shipley, Bingley and Keighley, and will contribute o significantly reducing the number of accidents in the three towns. The association also says that it believes that the construction of the motorway will stimulate industry. There is not one jot of evidence to show that a motorway will stimulate industry in my constituency or in a nearby one. On the evidence of Barnsley, Huddersfield and Preston, there is a strong possibility that industry will decline as a result of the presence of the motorway.

The fact is that the motorway is not part of a plan to relieve local traffic. It is part of a plan for the national network. If this road is approved, the proposed M65 Calder Valley route to Preston will follow, as will the proposed Baildon-Kirk-stall road to join up with the proposed Pudsey-Dishforth route and a link to the Ml.

If this pattern is followed, the Aire Valley motorway, far from being a local route, will become part of the shortest route between the Midlands and Scotland and will be part of a link between the Ml and the M6 at Preston.

Many members of the public are suspicious that, a key section having been approved, the argument will follow that there cannot be a motorway in isolation running from a trunk road at Keighley to a field near Skipton and that the rest of the motorway must follow. As part of a national network, it will attract traffic to it, and the roads around Keighley will bear a huge increase in traffic going on to and leaving the motorway.

In any case, 80 per cent. of the traffic using the existing A629/A650 trunk roads, on the road construction unit's own figures, is local and would be unlikely to be siphoned off to any significant degree by the motorway. During construction, existing roads would be chaotic due to the millions of tons of earth required on the Keighley-Kildwick section. At Silsden there is no provision for traffic to enter the north-bound carriageway, so that the section of the existing trunk road through Eastburn would face an increase in traffic over and above that caused by the construction traffic.

Recently a small girl was badly injured at Steeton. Local residents at Eastburn have agitated for several months for a Panda crossing and have blocked the road on several occasions, but a Panda crossing has not so far been produced. I hope that the Department of the Environment will concentrate on the matter, because it is of some urgency, particularly as accidents are occurring.

The second major point about the motorway is that of expense. Questions which I tabled elicited from my hon. Friend the information that the construction costs would be about £30 million at 1973 prices. In spite of having a Labour Government, I think one would accept that prices have increased slightly since 1973. There will be a further £5 million compensation for obtaining land, plus an untold sum for replacing two secondary schools and various public recreational facilities. So it can be safely assumed that the cost is likely to be in excess of £40 million.

In my view, we cannot afford this expenditure at a time of economic crisis, especially when we have more urgent priorities such as schools and houses to spend money on. For example, in my constituency, which is threatened by the motorway, there are two old schools— Hartington and Swire Smith.

It was expected by the planning people that Hartington School would be replaced in the near future. Consequently, planning consent was given to a factory which now overshadows the old nineteenth century school. It is overcrowded and the playground facilities there are already very limited because of pre-fabricated classrooms which have been erected to take the overspill. The whole position is now so dark and satanic that the pupils regard the school as their own Colditz.

Swire Smith also requires urgent replacement. It, too, is an old nineteenth century school. The original site which was earmarked for this school is next to a third school—a primary school— but that site has been moved because of the possibility of the motorway and the noise and general intrusion it would bring.

Nevertheless, those two secondary schools, Hartington and Swire Smith, are in urgent need of replacement, and, as we all know, educational expenditure has been curtailed. The primary school, Grange School, will be 240 feet away from the proposed motorway, which will be carried on a 35 to 40 ft. high embankment which will have on top of it a noise barrier to enable the school to function reasonably normally, but I am informed that outside lessons will not be possible because of the noise level from the motorway.

Bingley Beckfoot School, on which £50,000 is being spent, will have to be closed completely, as will the Salt High School, which is a mere 12 years old. No alternative sites have been chosen and no guarantees have so far been advanced about the completion of alternative schools before the existing ones are closed in view of motorway construction.

As a result, the educational panel of the Bradford Metropolitan District Council has registered an objection to the motorway. In my view, educational spending must have greater priority. Since education building remains cut, I must ask the Minister whether he will consider halting any further motorway construction beyond those motorways already in construction or those in the firm programme and already approved.

The cost of motorways has soared from £350,000 a mile for the Ml to the present average cost of £1,500,000 per mile, and the Aire Valley motorway would cost at least double that—£3 million per mile. We have over 1,000 miles of motorway, and, in the view of many people, this is sufficient.

However, one recognises that there are organisations which are devoted to the private profit interest of their members —organisations like the Freight Transport Association Ltd., and the Roads Campaign Council, which provides, incidentally, a full-time secretary to the all-party road study group in this House, and has provided free trips abroad for several Members of this House in the past. That is something which does not reassure the outside public.

The British Road Federation and the Roads Campaign Council take the view, in a highly expensive and glossy booklet which I received today, that motorways make the countryside look beautiful. This is not a view shared by the Keighley and Craven Group of the Holiday Fellowship, but the interest of this group, of course, is in the countryside and not in promoting private profit of its members.

The Secretary of the Keighley and Craven Group of the Holiday Fellowship has written to me as follows: We are broadly opposed to the construction of any such new road. The members of this club "— which is about 100— have for very many years enjoyed local rambles in the Aire Valley, especially during winter time when the shortage of daylight precludes trips further afield. We feel that the semi-rural nature of the Shipley/Bingley/ Keighley/Silsden part of the valley is an important recreational 'lung' for people living in the towns, and that the construction of a major highway would do grave scenic damage to the area in general, and especially to small-scale but attractive spots … That is the attitude of a group of people concerned in the countryside in and around the area of this projected motorway.

One cause for concern among people affected by the motorway is that people often write to the Minister and these letters are referred to the road construction unit. This is a group of people dedicated to the construction of the road. When this happens, people feel that the road construction unit is judge and jury in its own cause.

There is a question of compensation. There have been endless rumblings in the Stockbridge area of Keighley. The road construction unit has been buying up houses at compensation levels well below replacement costs and putting people into the houses as tenants. The area has not been adequately maintained because of blight by the proposed motorway, and hence there is a general lowering of values. The district valuer has placed these low values on the houses, but when people move they have to buy houses in areas which are not blighted and, therefore, they are often placed in an inferior financial position. When people are placed in such a position, they are putting their argument to the unit, and it falls on stony ground. Thus, when appeals to the Minister are referred to the unit people feel often that they have no independent arbitrator to turn to.

I suggest some alternatives. Why cannot there be bypasses for villages like Steeton and Eastburn and towns like Bingley, which have enormous traffic problems. Such bypasses could be built cheaply and quickly and would not soak up the very large amount of land, some of it agricultural, some of it recreational, which will be taken by the motorway.

Secondly, the Minister should undertake to examine the whole transport pattern of Yorkshire and Humberside and the North-West, including railway transport. As I have pointed out, the West Riding Transport Study did not include railway facilities in its arguments and calculations. The railway network of Airedale could be improved for less than one-quarter of the cost of the motorway.

If such an investigation is not forthcoming, I would welcome an assurance by the Secretary of State that he remains totally impartial and uncommitted on the issue within the framework of the Labour Party's policy to concentrate more on public transport and less on private. As a former Minister of Transport said, Urban roads cause pain and grief by destroying large numbers of homes. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was reported in The Guardian on 12th May 1973 as exhorting local labour councils to impose their will on traffic engineers and reject urban motorways which destroyed vast areas of homes. I hope that this is the policy of the Government, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of the Environment will not succumb to the blandishments of sections of the Civil Service and the tentacles of the British Road Federation and the Roads Campaign Council, which seem all-enveloping and stretch too far.

3.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) on his success in the ballot and on his skill, ability and great vigour in putting his case. It is an extremely complicated one. My hon. Friend has asked many questions. Because of the discipline required of us I may not be able to answer all of them, but if there are any that I do not deal with today I shall deal with them in correspondence.

My hon. Friend referred to the demands for roads which come from particular groups. I accept that there are always pressure groups quite legitimately pressing for particular things. He mentioned two very active groups on questions about roads. Many of our colleagues in this House are very anxious to have better roads in their areas. I spend perhaps more of my time meeting delegations or groups which desire to have roads than delegations or groups which do not desire them, because it has been accepted that roads are frequently one of the ways of preserving certain parts of the environment.

My hon. Friend mentioned Yorkshire and Humberside. In an Adjournment debate last Wednesday, my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) deplored the fact that we were not building roads there quickly enough. That is one of our dilemmas.

The history of the proposed Aire Valley motorway—or the Airedale route to give it its correct name, since it would be a motorway from Baildon to Kildwick and an all-purpose trunk road from Kildwick to Snaygill—goes back some time. The improvement of the existing trunk road in Airedale was a possibility for many years. The decision that a completely new road was required was taken in the late 1960s. The previous Labour Government's Green Paper, "Roads for the Future", issued in 1969 for public comment, showed a proposed strategy route from Bradford up Airedale and extending north-west to join the M6 near Kendal. The Conservative Government's programme, which was announced in June 1971 and did not look so far ahead, showed a new road extending from Baildon only as far as a point north-west of Skipton; and from Baildon the road would extend eastwards towards Leeds instead of southwards towards Bradford. The likelihood of a new road in Airedale has therefore been around for quite a long time.

The present proposals, which are confined to the centre line of the new road and the slip roads, were formally published on 14th December 1973. Exhibitions were held in January and February at a number of places in the area. So far rather more than 4,000 objections have been received. Further draft orders, providing for the alteration of side roads and compulsory purchase of the land required, will be published only if and when the centre line of the new road is fixed.

There is no doubt about the need for some improvement over the existing highway facilities in Airedale. The existing trunk road passes through the built-up areas of Shipley, Bingley and Keighley. Within Airedale the greater part of it is subject to speed restrictions. There is serious traffic congestion and delay, with traffic flows at saturation level on certain sections. This has a most serious effect on the environment of the communities along the route. The accident rate is three or four times greater than for similar roads in West Yorkshire.

In looking at the proposals for the Airedale route, however, we have been very much aware of two factors: first the need to remember the possible future growth of travel demand, and secondly, the possible impact of a shortage of oil.

The level of road traffic has increased substantially for many years. There was a marked falling-off in the immediate aftermath of the recent fuel shortage, but there has been some recovery since then. The Department is looking to see whether higher prices for fuel will affect travel demand. Over the time span that we must think of in talking of the road programme, it seems reasonable to expect some continued growth.

Unless a new road is provided in Airedale, one of two things will happen. Either the existing roads must be improved—this would cause major disturbance to people and property, particularly in the extensive urban areas—or some of the traffic will divert to other roads, less suitable for heavy traffic flows, causing congestion, delays and increased hazards.

My hon. Friend mentioned the role of the railways in the Labour Party programme. I can assure him that there is absolutely no change in our attitude to that adopted in opposition when our transport strategy was first expounded. He also mentioned housing. I deeply regret the effect on dwellings, but that is inevitable if the road is to serve the purpose for which it is designed.

The proposed route has been criticised on the ground that it would require the demolition of two schools. Shipley Salt grammar school and Bingley Beckfoot grammar school. I realise that the Bradford Metropolitan District Council will now have responsibility for this, and we are awaiting the council's response to the invitation to comment on the published proposals. My hon. Friend mentioned the Grange School at Keighley, and I must correct one of his points. He said that it would be overshadowed by a 40 ft. embankment. My information is that that is not so. The motorway would be 300 ft. from the school and 8 ft. below it. An 8-ft. noise barrier would be erected at the side of the road.

Before the proposals were formally published on 14th December 1973 a large number of alternative routes were considered between Baildon and Keighley. These fell into two categories: those in the valley and those following the higher ground to the north or south. The alternative routes in the valley were rejected because of the serious effects which they, together with the associated interchanges and link roads, would have on residential and industrial property and on recreational areas. The alternative routes on the higher ground would greatly extend the accesses to townships in the valley and involve long, steep gradients which would be a deterrent to heavy vehicles. In either case much of the present traffic would be left on the existing trunk road, which would therefore still require extensive improvement in the near future.

My hon. Friend has asked whether the Secretary of State would publish details of those alternative routes. The difficulty is that this would only add to the blighting effects inevitably caused by publication of the current proposals. But it is of course open, and it always has been, to anyone to submit an alternative route to the Secretary of State.

My hon. Friend has also asked the Secretary of State whether he would arrange to publish pollution levels likely to be produced by the proposed Aire Valley motorway. This is unfortunately not practicable. The degree of atmospheric pollution depends not only on the volumes and types of traffic but also on weather conditions and the local topography. It is in any case quite possible that net atmospheric pollution in the valley will be reduced because slow-moving traffic on the existing trunk road would be largely replaced by free-flowing traffic on any new road built.

A great deal of information about existing traffic flows in Airedale was published by the North Eastern Road Construction Unit earlier this month. I understand that my hon. Friend has complained, as he complained today, that the figures are based on information obtained in 1969. It is true, as the published information made clear, that much of the data was obtained in an origin and destination survey carried out in the summer of 1969. Origin and destination surveys are mammoth exercises which cannot be carried out every year or so; nor is this necessary. As long as the general traffic flows are regularly monitored, it is easy to extrapolate the up-to-date figures. This has been done, and the results suggest that traffic in Airedale is still increasing. Further monitoring is taking place to ensure that changes in traffic pattern are fully taken into account in the prediction of flows.

My hon. Friend has said today, as he said on 3rd April, that many of his constituents are appalled at the low level of compensation proposed for people affected by the new route. I told him that I had received no evidence from any source that compensation was inadequate and that I should be only too pleased to consider any information which had been given to him.

Mr. Cryer

Will my hon. Friend accept that the letter listing a particular case was sent to him, and it subsequently turned up at the North Eastern Road Construction Unit at Harrogate?

Mr. Carmichael

I shall look into that point, but my hon. Friend should bear in mind that the question and amount of compensation is always determined by a valuation officer of the Inland Revenue. Few of the thousands of people whose cases are dealt with in this way seem to be dissatisfied.

Owner-occupiers who are displaced from residential accommodation are entitled to whatever is the current market value of their properties as though there were no road proposals. They are also entitled to legal and reasonable removal and other expenses. Provided they have lived in the accommodation for at least five years, owner-occupiers will also be entitled to a home loss payment of three times the rateable value, subject to certain minimums. Owner-occupiers of low-value property may well be helped by the provision of suitable local authority accommodation, or the local authority may grant special mortgage loans.

Owners and owner-occupiers of residential properties which are not required for the works and which have a rateable value not exceeding £2,250 may claim compensation for—

It being Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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