§ 6.40 a.m.
§ Mr. John MacGregor (Norfolk, South)I must apologise to the Minister for, as it turns out, having kept him up all night, although I did not realise that that would be so when I put down my motion, but he has the consolation that I have had to share his all-night vigil. Perhaps we can both look forward to the holiday to which he referred in an earlier debate.
I am grateful for this opportunity of raising some questions in relation in particular to road programmes. I have been very much concerned for the past three years in my constituency, since I arrived in the House as a Member, with the road and other transport problems in my rural area. The recent transport White Paper has some important implications for county areas, which we have not yet had proper opportunity to explore in the House. It seemed to me that this would be a convenient opportunity to probe a little further one or two aspects of the White Paper before the House rises for the recess, so that we can get some clearer indication of what is in the Minister's mind. I hope to be discussing all these aspects further during the recess 1242 with the relevant people in my county concerned with transport.
I shall be following in a number of respects the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton), who initiated an earlier debate. Perhaps I may first take up one of the comments that he made about Essex which applies very much in Norfolk, too. That is that there is considerable anger and frustration about the fact that in the past three years the present Government have constantly switched a large part of the rate support grant away from the county areas to the metropolitan areas, at a time when the county areas—my hon. Friend's and mine; and my county area is now one of the fastest-growing areas in the country—are taking a good deal of the population from the metropolitan areas.
I recognise that the Minister is not responsible for the rate support grant, although I wanted to put on record the fact that this is very much one of the problems which my county council, as the roads authority for the area, has to face—that it has limited resources as a result of this switch by central Government.
The Minister has already referred to the transport supplementary grant and he made some favourable noises about its effects upon Essex. Will he comment on the implications of the TSG, in his new thinking, for Norfolk?
I am only too well aware that we are considering problems of public expenditure in transport at a time of considerable restraint on public expenditure as a whole—very necessary, in my view, because of the overall economic climate and the economic priorities in front of us. I do not wish to be one of those who are constantly arguing for a much larger total of public expenditure, so in my remarks I should like to concentrate on some of the priorities and to probe at directions in which those priorities are going, rather than to suggest that there should be more money spent overall on transport.
I shall begin with one or two general comments on the White Paper. I should then like to raise four specific questions with the Minister. I believe that in a number of respects, at least, this is a welcome White Paper, because it is practical and realistic and to some extent will 1243 help the county areas. For example, I welcome the decision to introduce more flexible licensing laws. I would say on that subject only that, as the Minister knows, there was a proposal by the previous Conservative Government for a Bill to introduce some type of flexibility, and I wish that we had not had the three-year delay.
One of the less favourable aspects of the White Paper that concerns me very much is whether the Government are wise in making this switch in priorities—this is a point that was also made strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree, who I see in the Chamber—away from the road programme to put greater emphasis on revenue subsidies in public transport, both bus and rail. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree quoted the figure in paragraph 246 of the White Paper on Transport Policy which showed that the level of expenditure on the construction of new roads by central and local government had dropped from £1,000 million in 1971–72 to £630 million in 1977–78. At the same time, from another table in the White Paper, we see that the current subsidies to buses and rail have risen from £10 million in 1971–72 to a projected £185 million in the years ahead. The support for the passenger side of British Rail, for example, has risen in the same period from £135 million to £295 million now projected.
This is a considerable switch, and I share my hon. Friend's anxieties that this may not be the most effective way of spending that additional amount of public expenditure. I feel that for two reasons. First, it may not accord with the general wishes of the majority of the population who on the whole now prefer, and I believe always will prefer, car transport. Inevitably, with the run down in the road programme, it will be those who use their cars who will be affected. In addition, the community will be affected environmentally because of the large volume of traffic which the roads will be incapable of dealing with adequately.
We should bear in mind that the people who will benefit from the increase in public transport subsidies are by and large small in number, leaving aside the commuter element. But when we realise 1244 that in the rural areas people will choose to use their cars, I wonder whether this switch in priorities is what the public as a whole would have chosen. I also wonder whether we are getting value for money for the public as a whole.
My second worry is that this is yet another example of current Government thinking on public expenditure where all the cut-backs are being made on capital expenditure while they are preserving, and in some cases increasing, current expenditure. I believe that on a five-to-ten year view that simply cannot be right. It is not appropriate to go into all the problems that this raises for the construction industry at present. But that is something that we should bear in mind as well. There is a big employment implication here.
That is the only general point that I wish t make on the White Paper. I am disturbed at the run down, and the continued planned run down, in the amount of money that is being devoted to the road programme.
I turn to my four points. They are points which I would ask the Minister to clarify a little more precisely with regard to what we can expect in the next year or two. I shall illustrate each point with Norfolk examples because that is the easiest way of showing what I have in mind. However, there are implications for other counties.
First, I should like to quote from paragraph 248 of the White Paper. That is a paragraph which, if properly carried out, I very much welcome. It is the paragraph where the Government are indicating that there will be a switch in the road programme away from the national network—the motorways and the major trunk routes—to rather more specific policies. To bring the point out I quote from paragraph 248 which states that:
the Government intends to adopt a more flexible approach…This is a matter not of building to lines superimposed on maps and to rigid standards but of deciding on the right standard for each section of route and producing proposals for the most economical solution, taking into account environmental considerations. It would not be using the money available to best advantage to plan and construct roads to a uniform standard throughout when the traffic volume on different stretches is not uniform—especially when 1245 building to a lower standard on some stretches would save money which could then be spent on more by-passes to relieve hard-pressed towns and villages.The next paragraph adds:There will be a more selective approach. This policy will mean improving roads in phases, dealing with the worst stretches first.This switch is right in current circumstances when money is limited and when we have already had a substantial building programme on the motorway networks. I welcome it.Can the Minister clarify how this will work out in practice on the stretch of the A 11 from Newmarket to Cringleford? The 1970 White Paper "Roads for the Future" stated that the A 11 would be selected
for comprehensive improvement to motorway or dual carriageway standards".That has been the general objective since then but this route has constantly slipped back in the road programme.In August last year it was indicated in a Written Reply that the improvement would be put back two or three years and that work would not start until 1984. One of the reasons for that is that the traffic volume for the whole route does not compare with many others in the country. The scheme has always slipped back because on large chunks of the road the traffic is not dense.
Between Attleborough and Cringleford, however—the last section of the road from London—the traffic volume is heavy and there are considerable problems. I travel the road every weekend and it is not until I reach Thetford that I experience any problems in getting out of London and moving through Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. It is an excellent road until one reaches Thetford, but it is then single carriageway, often twisting, and very many heavy lorries use it. That stretch is the slowest. It takes twice as long to travel that as it does any comparable stretch. That does not show up in the statistics, but it is the practical experience of drivers.
Does the new emphasis in the White Paper mean that it will now be possible to deal with the road in sections? In an ideal world we would all like to see a dual carriageway for the whole length of the road but that may not be a practical proposition for many years. I believe 1246 that most people using the road would therefore welcome a scheme to start improving some sections at least of the road either by adding another carriageway or by making them dual carriageway, instead of waiting years for the whole length to be done. That would help to relieve the worst congestion. It would give car drivers the opportunity to pass heavy lorries that they might have followed for 15 miles. That would be the best solution. It would make it possible to start planning earlier for the removal of the worst bottlenecks. It is in line with the White Paper.
In that context, I remind the Minister that Norfolk has been taking a disproportionate share of postponements in the road programme. I suspect that the whole traffic flow does not add up to the density experienced in other parts but that if it had been broken down it would, and that perhaps some of these postponements would not have taken place.
The second point I wish to make concerns bypasses. I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree because I have the same kind of difficulty in many of the historic towns and villages in my constituency. Paragraph 25 of the White Paper says,
Apart from industrial and regional needs the other main priority will be schemes of environmental importance.I welcome that statement.This is another reason why I am concerned about a cut-back in the road programme. An enormous number of environmental schemes throughout the country are not only necessary but would bring comfort and relief to many more people than those who use the roads. Furthermore, those schemes would raise the quality of life for a large number of residents. I suspect that many people would like to see more resources spent on those aspects than, say, on subsidising bus fares and similar matters. Those environmental matters cause real grievances and are with people every day, whereas the heavy cost of bus fares may affect a person only once a week. That is especially true of the low-income groups.
It worries me that in many of the historic towns and villages of Norfolk, with its narrow roads, we see enormous lorries tearing through the areas in large 1247 numbers. I wish to draw the Minister's attention especially to the A143 which leads to a port, because he has told us that such roads will be given priority. In regard to bypasses, what degree of priority will be given to some of those schemes? I know that some of them are quite expensive, but they are much less expensive than are the major trunk routes which have been planned so far.
Having been heartened by what I read about the environmental aspects, I was a little depressed to read paragraph 258 of the White Paper which says:
Many towns and villages will have to endure the intrusion of traffic for years to come.Bypasses have for many years slipped behind in the queue in priority terms. Will the Government look more favourably at the provision of bypasses, especially in situations where there is a large environmental content?I wish to put one specific question to the Minister about bypasses. In my constituency the Attleborough bypass has a high degree of priority, and is fairly well up the queue in the Government's road programme, coming in 1981. In December 1975 the Government held a public consultation inquiry, and I was told after that inquiry that it was hoped comparatively soon to announce the results of the route. Blight has often been a problem in these situations because there is always uncertainty whether the route will run north or south of a town or whatever it may be. It is desirable to select the required route so that people know where they are. Therefore, I am depressed at the delay which has occurred in announcing the route. I was told in a letter from the Minister's predecessor on 16th February 1976:
The Department is now analysing the questionnaires received—over 250—and I hope that it will not be too long before an announcement is made on the preferred route.Then in June 1976 I was told that that announcement was expected soon. Yet now, in a recent Parliamentary Answer, I was told that an announcement on the preferred route was not to be made till later this year. This is a long delay, and I ask the Minister to try to expedite announcement of the route so that people will know where they stand.1248 My third point relates to another part of the White Paper—namely, to the implications of the greater rÔle given to local authorities. Again, this is a point in the White Paper that I welcome.
In paragraph 74 the Government make it clear that
Local authorities are in the best position to know how people feel about local transport services.I agree.Paragraph 78 says that within the national framework the Government want to see a much bigger rÔle for local authorities. With this determination to give local authorities a bigger rÔle, coupled with the fact that the trunk routes and motorways will run down in importance, there will obviously be a much smaller rÔle for the road construction units. When will the changeover take place? When can county councils expect to see a much bigger rÔle for themselves? A bigger rÔle would be much welcomed in Norfolk because there is a strong impression there that it is low on the list of priorities in the Eastern Road Construction Unit.
Would it not be better, and perhaps follow the guidelines of the White Paper, to give more power, responsibility and resources back to the local authorities, not only in the co-ordination of the bus and rail services but in the building and deciding of priorities of some routes, such as the All, which is now the Eastern Road Construction Unit's responsibility? That, coupled with working on individual chunks of the route, would enable us to make such faster progress.
My last question is also related to the rôle of local authorities. How much is being delegated back to the local authorities in this emphasis on maximum freedom of choice locally? How much of a co-ordinating r ôle will they have? I understand that they are to be consulted much more on the closure of local rail services, and that they will have to sort out more the co-ordination between rail and bus services in their own communities.
What is not clear to me from the White Paper is whether local authorities will have a proper say in capital programmes generally and in the choice of capital programmes as between road and rail. For example, it has been suggested that 1249 the line from Ipswich to Norwich might be electrified. In an ideal world that may be desirable, but at present it is a perfectly adequate line. I suspect that most people in Norfolk would much rather have the money spent, if it is available, on the road programme there rather than achieving only marginal improvements to the rail service. So is it only current expenditure or is capital expenditure also involved in this new delegation to local authorities?
On a separate point but also related to local choice, I very much support what my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree said earlier about speed limits. The Minister gave a sympathetic response, and I am glad that he is looking at the matter again. May I impress upon him that it is not the impression in parish councils or the county council that the Department applies the guidelines flexibly. Every time I raise the issue of a speed limit—and I have 160 towns and villages, so the matter comes up regularly—I run up against an obstacle at county council level. I am told "The Department has strict guidelines, including the accident criteria. You must meet the accident criteria as well as traffic flows and speed. Therefore, we can do nothing about it."
I take the Minister's point that we cannot have a whole confusion of different kinds of speed limits all over the country. But it is not unreasonable for most villages to expect to have a 30 m.p.h. or 40 m.p.h. limit. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will speed up his investigation into the matter. If bypasses cannot be achieved quickly enough—and we all know that there must be priorities for them—a more flexible approach to speed limits would greatly ease the worries of inhabitants of many of the villages suffering from heavy lorries, not only because the limits may reduce traffic speed but for psychological reasons. Little expenditure would be required to provide a great deal of help.
Those are the four points that I wanted to put to the Minister for clarification. I appeared on Anglian Television the night the White Paper was produced. One of the Minister's hon. Friends who is not too far removed from the transport world appeared at the same time and indicated quite clearly to the public at large that the White Paper was good news for East 1250 Anglia. I still have some doubts. I have shown where they lie and how in theory I believe that it could be good, but we must see it in practice. I hope that the Minister will now be able to show that my doubts can be removed.
§ 7.5 a.m.
§ Mr. John Farr (Harborough)I share many of the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) in the latter part of his speech when he referred to such matters as bypasses and the congestion which occurs in parts of his constituency where bypasses are either needed or have been built and are inadequate. He referred to the position of small towns and villages which badly need bypasses and which have their community life disrupted through a lack of them.
I wish to refer to one major national trunk road which is on the drawing board. It is the A1-M1 link road. It may well be constructed within the next 10 or 15 years. The feasibility study has been undertaken. Plans are afoot to finalise and detail the exact route. The problems arising from the lack of this link road have been more marked in my constituency than anywhere else. In my constituency in South Leicestershire is the east-west trunk road, the A427, through which, every day, an ever-growing burden of heavy goods vehicles rumbles. This incessant noise has severe social repercussions in the villages along that road.
We have been told that the Al-M1 link will resolve all these problems and that the difficulties experienced by the villagers on the A427 and in the ancient and historic town of Harborough, which is cut into four by the A427 and the A6, will be ended when the link is constructed. In a fascinating speech my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South referred to the White Paper. The story of the proposed link has highlighted failings in the Department's planning policies for these important new roads.
There has been a massive public participation scheme on the link road, but the participation was undertaken too late. Most of the local authorities in the area of the South Midlands affected by the link—the box of the south of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire—were not consulted about the desirability of having 1251 this new link road until the plans were revealed by the then Minister at a Press conference at Kettering on 30th October 1974.
Since then many of us have felt that the proper consultation should have taken place with the local authorities much sooner, not on the exactitude of the link road and not asking the public, as they were asked on 30th October 1974, to fill in a form saying on which side of their village they wanted the road to run, and what exact route they preferred within a given band. Many people believe that there should have been public participation many years earlier, when there were—in fact, there still are—two alternatives. One is that which the Department has chosen—to go ahead with the link road, to give the public certain alternative bands to choose from.
But instead of having a new link road which will swallow up more than 800 acres of good farm land —I declare an interest, because the new link road will go over part of good farm land which I farm—there was and still is another method of serving exactly the same purpose of getting traffic from Fast to West between the major North-South highways. It would also provide peace and quiet to the villages on the A427 without constructing a brand-new link road, but by undertaking a dual scheme of improving the A427 and bypassing the villages on its route, including Market Harborough to the south and thence link up with the A6 and the A604 to the Al, coupled with an upgrading of the scheme which is at present afoot to improve the A45 running further south in Northampton which is already a link road between the M1 and the A1.
Public participation should have taken place then. The two alternatives should have been placed before the general public and local authorities and a decision taken then in public, after full public participation, rather than a decision not to upgrade existing roads but to go ahead by blazing a new trail across the heart of England taken in secrecy and behind closed doors in the Department of Transport.
The decision—if it means action and relief for my constituents, I welcome it—has, however, definitely prolonged the dis- 1252 quiet and the discomfort which my constituents are suffering because of the ravages of the heavy traffic on the A427. On this road which runs from east to west between Market Harborough and Lutterworth there are in my constituency four important communities including the ancient town of Market Harborough and the villages of Lubenham, Theddingworth, and Husbands Bosworth. One result of the announcement that the link is to go ahead is that planned and firmly promised bypasses—for instance, for the old village of Theddingworth, which has narrow, twisted streets and suffers considerable disruption from heavy vehicles —will not go ahead as planned. In 1974 Theddingworth was promised that the building of a bypass was to start in 1976, but it has been postponed indefinitely.
Market Harborough, many of whose old buildings are adjacent to the very busy A6 running from north to south, has suffered just as much. Some of the buildings, which are of great antiquity, are boarded up and out of use because of vibration from passing traffic. Market Harborough is suffering, but I have been told in reply to Questions in the House that no decision will be taken about bypassing Market Harborough in any way until the Al-M1 link plans are proceeded with.
I want to be brief at this hour, but I must tell the Minister that these communities, which I have the honour and pleasure to represent—the ancient town of Market Harborough and the small villages of Lubenham, Husbands Bosworth and Theddingworth on the A427—are not prepared to wait in their present disquiet and discomfort any longer, and they certainly are not prepared to wait for some form of relief by way of bypass until such time as the new link road is constructed some miles to the south, which could well be 10 years ahead.
Last year, so great were the problems in Theddingworth that I was forced to send in a social worker to get reports, which I later forwarded to the Minister at the Department of Health and Social Security, on life in the village, and one of the major features which that social worker highlighted in his report was the way in which village life in that ancient community, hitherto always closely knit. 1253 has been divided in two by this monstrosity of a road with constant heavy traffic cutting the northern half from the south.
I hope that the Minister will recognise that some of what I have said has a great depth of feeling behind it. I ask him to acknowledge that, merely because there is the probability that we shall have a massive link road running from east to west some 10 or 15 miles further south in another county, it is not good enough to say to these villagers "You must wait until such time as that is constructed, and in the meantime your bypass plans are put into cold storage". Certainly, Market Harborough will not wait for a north-south and east-west bypass. I urge the Minister to give me a reply which I can take to my constituents in the recess so that they may at least examine it with some hope.
§ 7.17 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. John Horam)By leave of the House, may I speak a second time on the Bill? Since there are other hon. Members wishing to speak on other topics, and they will have waited even longer than the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) has had to wait, I shall, if he will forgive me, be brief. I ask the same indulgence of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr).
I take, first, the question of the transport supplementary grant. As I told the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) earlier, I accept that some counties do not do well out of this grant. Indeed, a number of shires get nothing at all out of the TSG, which is obviously a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs from their point of view. It is unsatisfactory from the Government's point of view also in this sense. If in the general order of priorities and proposals for financial arrangements it is right to take account of both the local interest and the national interest in choosing priorities, if we make no financial contribution through the TSG we cannot indicate our view of priorities quite so forcibly as we might otherwise do. So it is not entirely satisfactory from the Government's view.
Nevertheless, we are looking into the situation precisely because of the diffi- 1254 culty to which I have referred. These grants are worked out on a formula basis, which is very hard to alter and make more sensitive to the needs of particular communities and counties. It is not easy to achieve a change, but we are looking into it.
On current subsidies, the hon. Gentleman slightly misrepresented the situation. Not all public transport subsidies are increasing. For example, the rail freight subsidy of £70 million is being phased out at the beginning of this year. Indeed, the current passenger support grant is being cut by £20 million by the end of the decade. This has been a matter of some complaint by the railway industry. It is not simply a matter of switching money from capital spending on roads to revenue support.
Chapter 2 of the White Paper contains some fairly sensible strictures on the disadvantages of subsidies as such which will I am sure, ring true in the heart of a good Conservative as well as in the heart of a sensible Socialist. I think that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that we have not gone overboard on this matter but that there are real problems which I have tried to indicate.
The question of road spending should be put in a little more perspective. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that there was a decline in road spending and an increase in public transport expenditure, but he will also know that there is a decline in the total transport budget in my Department from £2,620 million in 1976–77 to about £2,200 million by the end of the decade. That is a substantial decline, entirely due to the fact that we were in the Department of the Environment and had not a Ministry of our own. It would have been different had that history been different. But that is something we have had to live with and, in the light of what I have said, railway subsidies have not come out too badly.
The hon. Gentleman also said that bus subsidies affect only a small number of people in comparison with spending on roads, and that a large number of people can be relieved in their severe daily road problems. But many of the small number of people affected by public transport subsidies, or who benefit from them, are 1255 among the most needy, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the general campaign which his own Front-Bench spokesman on transport has waged in the last year particularly. Certainly I have felt the brunt of it in regard to the rural transport crisis, the disappearance of buses from villages, and so on. We have tried to take that very much on board, and that is something which we can help only by the two means of relaxing licensing arrangements and also pumping in more money, although recognising the limitations of this.
As to the specific questions, one of them concerned the All, a road which has been scheduled for a comprehensive improvement over the years. It is true that as a result of successive public expenditure exercises—not transport exercises—that comprehensive improvement has slipped back. But given the fact that there are, as the hon. Gentleman says, big differences in the requirements between particular sections of the road, I notice that the most needed requirements were entirely concentrated in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency. It is simple coincidence that that was so. I accept that the greatest need is north of Thetford. Indeed, the new policy will help, because it specifically says that we shall not improve comprehensively to a uniform standard but select the most pressing parts of the problem and deal with them first, even if others have to be left. That stretch of the road is likely in principle to benefit from this new approach. As to bypasses, equally I think one can say that there will be a more favourable attitude to bypassing towns where there is a very beautiful or historic market town involved.
The decisions that we took this year, before the White Paper came out, were in line with the thinking that was to appear in the White Paper. For example, Ludlow did not necessarily qualify on purely economic criteria or industrial grounds, but it got its bypass brought forward because I regarded it as worth while in environmental terms. That was the result of my personal view, which was favourable to the kind of thing suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
We are reviewing the role of the road construction units as part of our general look at manpower levels. This has flown 1256 from the request by the previous Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), to look at manpower levels. That will be done. So far there is no clear view on the future role of the RCUs. We shall have to look first at the road schemes following the new plans in the White Paper and then consider the implications for the RCUs. As no clear view has yet emerged, I cannot say anything about that aspect.
I refer now to the question whether the local authorities, as part of the greater powers and responsibilities that we are giving them regarding public transport planning, will also have not only more power over revenue support but more control over capital spending. Regarding British Railways, the answer in the main is "No". British Railways will retain control, subject to ministerial control, of their investment programme. If a railway line remains part of the national network, British Railways will have the major say in what investment takes place. We have proposals for designating certain lines, which are not part of the national network, as local lines. In all cases the county will have clear control over that situation. That will include investment matters as well as revenue support and the general question of the future of a particular line. We have yet to consult on that matter, so the details remain unsettled. We are anxious to have views. That is the general picture. It is right that, in trying to achieve greater co-ordination at local level, as much capital spending as possible as well as revenue support should be included in that general control.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the immediate aftermath of the White Paper. I think that he appeared on a programme about this matter with one of my hon. Friends who is not too far distant from us, although I hope that he is sleeping soundly this morning. My hon. Friend claimed that the White Paper was good news for East Anglia. I think that it is, first because of the rural emphasis in the White Paper, which has been widely acknowledged and welcomed, and that must help predominantly rural counties, and, secondly, because of the emphasis on smaller road schemes and bypasses. That must help with conditions more common in Norfolk than in other parts of the country, though the general problem of 1257 financial constraints will inevitably mean that some projects are slowed down from time to time when we may wish that they were not.
I turn now to the comments made by the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). I live in north Northamptonshire and travel frequently along the A427. It is my link to the M6 and M1. I know Husbands Bosworth, Market Harborough and Theddingworth very well. I appreciate the problems that they face.
The A427 is a principal road for which the Department is not responsible. Responsibility lies with the Leicester County Council, and it is the agent for constructing any bypass that may be appropriate. I do not know its plans in relation to the Lubenham, Husbands Bosworth and Theddingworth bypass, and the hon. Member will have to approach the Leicester County Council for further information about that.
The A6 bypass at Harborough is our responsibility, but the Leicester County Council is acting as our agent and is currently preparing an economic assessment of this project. The environmental effects of removing heavy traffic from the town centre are being taken into account, as are the economic criteria.
If it is found that a bypass is needed, it will go into the preparation pool, and we shall go through all the necessary procedures. I am afraid that this will take some time. It could be six or seven years before the schemes comes to fruition. It is a disappointingly long time, but for the sort of scheme that is appropriate for Market Harborough there are many statutory procedures and there is a lot of public consultation.
I have become a little impatient at the rather over-elaborate analysis of the public consultation exercise, and I have asked my officials to speed it up and to come to a relatively crude number counting that gives us basically what we want. Often there is a clear preference. I have looked at the time taken after the public have given their verdict, and often it is incredibly long. If it were cut down by six months, that would be six months well saved. Knowing the problems of Market Harborough, I hope that this is done as expeditiously as possible.
1258 The A1-M1 link is a major scheme which has been planned for many years. In a sense it is a plan on the old, pre-White Paper basis, and it will be reviewed as part of a general review of major schemes. I understand the reason why the particular route was chosen, as opposed to the choice the hon. Member mentioned. It is more direct, and since it is essentially a route taking national and industrial traffic from the Midlands to the Haven Ports, it is a national road and directness is a major consideration.
This is part of the inevitable conflict between trying to plan for national flows of traffic and resolving the implications for small villages on parallel roads which one would like to improve for their own sakes. These have to wait for some time because we are dealing here with a new national A1-M1 link. I know that is not entirely satisfactory from the hon. Member's point of view, but he will understand choice of this option. It will be looked at most carefully in future in the context of the White Paper.