HC Deb 26 February 1991 vol 186 cc913-20
Mr. Spearing

I beg to move, amendment No. 41, in page 40, line 41, at end add— '(c) the needs of frontagers for road access and short term parking: It is in order to remind the House of the context of the amendment. An extraordinarily complex set of orders, regulations and so on were the subject of an exchange during debate on the last amendment, and I was completely lost. I understand that the Minister can make an order for a section of road, and that he does so in accordance with management guidance under a statutory code that he intends to issue. He will also issue objectives to the so-called director of traffic, who is really a director of red routes. Therefore, there will be statutory objectives.

There will also be a London network plan, which may emerge in due course to be contained on the map to which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) referred. We then descend to council level. Having received all these pieces of paper, each London authority must draw up a local network plan. Clause 45(6) states: a London authority shall have regard to—

  1. (a) the Secretary of State's traffic management guidance: and
  2. (b) the network plan."
I assume that management guidance subsumes the statutory objectives, which means that the authorities have many criteria to look at.

The amendment deals with "the needs of frontages …" If the local authority does not take note of the needs of local frontages, who will? The Minister rejected an amendment moved on behalf of organisations and said that local authorities would look after them. The needs of frontages are very important. I do not understand why that is not there. I hope that the Minister will have another look at this.

As I pointed out earlier, if the use of the thoroughfare is to be oriented to the needs and speed of traffic, which is the object of the Bill, the needs of the frontagers will be squeezed out. If the needs of traffic are to be emphasised in the "traffic management guidance", and if they are to be further emphasised in the objectives, which are large and can be made by the Secretary of State whether he comes from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales or London, the local authority does not have to have regard to anything else, because the Bill says that the local authority "shall have regard".

In other words, the poor old local authority, which is the last statutory bastion of local interest, is or could he—I ascertain that that would be the Minister's objective—prohibited from having regard to the needs of the local frontagers. If the Minister's guidance, management guidance and objectives cut that out, local authorities cannot do it. Moreover, they cannot do it by a combination of statute which I have tried to unravel and the predilections of the Secretary of State and his Minister, which have been made all too clear in earlier debates.

One might imagine, as the Minister said grandly, that the Secretary of State will consider an appeal from the director, answer an Adjournment debate, and so on, but that will not be the case. It will not even be Ministers who looks at such matters. They are great political figures with national and international matters, constituency matters and party matters to attend to, regardless of the political party to which they belong.

One Secretary of State—this is a true story—was outside his property one day when a man turned up with a brown envelope. He asked whether the Secretary of State was the householder. When he said he was, the man gave him the brown envelope. The Secretary of State opened it, to find that it informed him that the Secretary of State was minded to designate his land as being of special scientific interest. The Secretary of State said, "This is wrong," to which the man said "Oh no, Sir—I assure you it is correct." The Secretary of State said "You're lying." When the man, affronted, asked why, the Secretary of State replied, "Because I am the Secretary of State for the Environment." That was the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley).

Such decisions will not be made by any of the Ministers here today—or their successors, who might be some of my hon. Friends here. They will be decided by others. It was difficult enough for members of the Greater London council to decide on such things. They will not be decided by Members who can be tackled in the Lobby by an affronted Member. Unless the Minister accepts my amendment, the needs of frontagers will be statutorily cut out. I am surprised about that, because some of the frontagers will be people whom Conservative Members might wish to encourage. I might also wish to encourage them, as I encourage small-scale private or public enterprise which helps the common weal.

If roads are to be converted into semi-racetracks and all the criteria of traffic management applied thereto, frontagers' interests will be ignored. My amendment does not tell local authorities that they should give those interests priority; only that they should "have regard to" them. But as written and as spoken to, as the Bill goes and as the Executive have made clear, they shall not have regard to the needs of the frontagers, whether it be in Upper street, Islington, Streatham high road, East Hill, Wandsworth or wherever the roads will run. As I said, many of them will be in the sort of high streets which were common in Edwardian and Victorian London.

I hope that the Minister will have second thoughts and that he will accept the logic that I have attempted to erect in moving this amendment.

Frontagers need road access, not necessarily parking. Consider the needs, not of shops or premises, but of a disabled or elderly person who wishes to unload some furniture, and is not parking in the strict sense of the word for 10 minutes but merely for three or four minutes. That is what is meant by frontager's access to the road. Occasionally they need access.

Short-term parking could mean for the purposes of delivering to shops, waiting while someone goes into a premises to collect children, going to the doctor's, or picking up someone who is a little late because they are delayed inside the house. All those things are very important for frontagers on such thoroughfares. As the Bill stands, and according to the Minister, however, they will not be regarded by the local authority, which is the last bastion of defence for the liberty of the subject in this matter.

11.15 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes

My Docklands colleague, the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and I have a self-interested constituency fear about prospects. I guess that a road which passes from west to east along what is roughly the northernmost boundary of my hon. Friend's constituency might be a fairly obvious candidate for designation before too long.

Mr. Spearing

Barking road.

Mr. Hughes

The A2 is also likely to be a sure candidate for a red route, given that the A1 has already undergone a trial.

My best response to my hon. Friend's story about the former Secretary of State being served a notice is that this morning, before I left home, I heard a knock upon my window, which is only a couple of feet from the road. Today is the second day since the local authority opened a neighbourhood housing office on the site next to my home. I think that the site must have been chosen deliberately for fairly obvious reasons—to add to the mischief that the local authority can impose upon me. The person who knocked on the window had been going up and down the road for some time and had been unable to find anywhere to pay her rent, so she offered it to me. I was minded to take it, but integrity got the better of me and I directed her to the building next door, which is the neighbourhood housing office but has nothing on it to say so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South spoke to the amendment tabled in our names. I must mischievously remind him about the second part, which is printed over the page, which I wish to tackle as well. We want consultation by the local authority, which will take into account two main worries—frontagers' needs for road access and parking, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and the safety, convenience, and amenity of residents on and adjacent to any proposed priority route. I can be brief because it is even more self-evident that this amendment poses no difficulty for the Minister, and I anticipate that if he is feeling generous he may be able to accept it readily. The amendment specifically gives a duty to the local authority, not to the Government. Governments are always more willing to impose duties on local authorities than to accept duties imposed on themselves or on any officer or official appointed by them.

The amendment will make the 33 London boroughs have regard to management, guidance, the network plan and these extra requirements. As regards the safety, convenience, and amenity of residents on and adjacent to any proposed priority route", will the Minister give an undertaking that the interests of people living on or adjacent to, for example, the A2, which is the Old Kent road and the New Kent road, will automatically be taken into account by the local authority? If there is any doubt about that because the Bill is not explicit, just as we encourage good planning practice by consulting people in the immediate neighbourhood of a planning application, we should surely encourage good traffic planning practice by requiring consultation with, and an obligation to have regard to the interests of, those living nearby.

The planning legislation does not always work well—not least because consultation is not obligatory, but an optional extra for local authorities. It is good practice, but they do not always follow that practice—sometimes intentionally, but more often accidentally. The amendment would impose that duty on them. It would be encouraging if my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South and I could leave the debate knowing that an obligation would be placed on our local authorities to consult the relevant people.

I entirely understand that, if we are to have a red route—the Minister already knows my views about that—we cannot have a red route which suddenly has vehicles parked along it affording delivery to the frontages, or short-term parking for other reasons. It is a perpetual problem to reconcile the needs of those who have, over the years, lived next to or run a business on a main road. I am always receiving complaints. One example is a shop called Jay's on Lower road, Rotherhithe—an old family business which has been there for years. When there was very short-term parking outside—when something was being delivered, or someone with a disabled person's badge was leaving a vehicle—a second later, a traffic warden would appear out of the blue and either issue a ticket or, on occasion, do something worse, the vehicle would be taken further down the road and someone would be inconveniencing the traffic for a long time.

I have complained when goods vehicles have parked on roads which are needed for the through passage of traffic, reducing a two-lane road to a one-lane road. Neither my hon. Friend nor I would argue that the nature of a road is not changed by allowing indiscriminate parking at any time, by any vehicle, for any purpose. We are saying that consideration must be given to reconciling the needs of established users of the road with the needs of those who are using the road. I hope that the amendment will prove appealing.

Mr. Corbyn

I support the amendment, especially paragraph (d). The initial effect of the priority-route scheme thrust on the people of Islington is the difficulty experienced by people using local shops, especially the disabled. Pedestrians have had problems trying to cross the road, because of the increased traffic speeds in the central part of the Holloway road; I am not sure whether that applies to either the Archway or the Upper street end.

Mr. Chris Smith

That is true of most of Upper street: traffic has, on the whole, speeded up. My hon. Friend must also bear in mind the fact that the two bottlenecks at Holloway road and the Angel still exist at either end of Upper street, so there has not been massive benefit for the traffic using it. Between those two points, however, the speed of the traffic, and therefore the potential danger to pedestrians, is much greater.

Mr. Corbyn

I thank my hon. Friend. The concern that we have been expressing all along is that the next thing that will happen is that the Secretary of State will come along and take one look at Archway island, Highbury corner and the Angel and decide that we need a massive road widening scheme, which will increase the volume of traffic that can use the road and so create further problems.

The amendment refers to residents on and adjacent to any proposed priority route. They should surely be borne in mind, but our experience so far is that they are not, and that traffic—including parking and delivery vehicles forced off the red route—tends to park on side streets as near as it can to the priority route. The traffic wardens and police have been told to direct their efforts towards the red route, and apparently the policing effect on the immediate side roads has been reduced to the extent that disabled persons' parking bays the council has had a considerable number installed—are now often occupied by vehicles delivering to shops and other nearby establishments. It is a serious problem.

I hope that the Minister will understand that much more thought needs to be given to the problem. It is no good merely rushing in with a red route, without the necessary local junction works that should go with it and without proper consideration of the needs of the local community. The message that is conveyed by that lack of consideration is that the one purpose of the red routes is to get a greater volume of traffic moving more rapidly through a highly built-up area which in fact needs less traffic, less noise, less pollution and greater mobility. The red route offers none of those things.

Mr. Chope

I have much sympathy with the points made by Opposition Members about the importance of the needs of frontagers and residents in relation to priority routes. Certainly their needs will be taken into account in the development of priority routes and in the implementation of the measures in accordance with approved local plans, but there is no need for them to be referred to specifically in the clause, as suggested in the amendment.

Those considerations, and other issues—such as safety and environmental questions, special help for buses and facilities for pedestrians and cyclists—will be fully discussed in the traffic management guidance produced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State under clause 42. I know that the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is sceptical about whether my right hon. and learned Friend will ever look at the guidance that he issues, but the hon. Gentleman may be familiar with the traffic management guidance issued in April 1987 under paragraph 6 of schedule 5 to the Local Government Act 1985, following the demise of the GLC. I have not consulted the then Secretary of State, but I would be most surprised if that detailed document had not been examined by Transport Ministers.

The traffic management guidance, which my right hon. and learned Friend has established is up for consultation, will set out the Secretary of State's objectives in designating the priority routes and will provide the overall framework within which the traffic director and the local authorities must work. The traffic director will be required to pay regard to the guidance in preparing his network plan under clause 44 and the local authorities will be required to pay regard to both the guidance and the network plan in preparing their local plans under clause 45.

Mr. Simon Hughes

The Minister makes a reasonable point. Is he saying that the guidance that will be given by the Secretary of State will explicitly require a local authority, in preparing its plan, to have to regard to the two categories of user dealt with in the amendment? If so, what will be the sanction or remedy for those concerned if the local authority does not fulfil that requirement properly?

Mr. Chope

The same remedy will apply as applies under statutory law at the moment for any local authority that unreasonably ignores the representations made to it. The hon. Gentleman will be as familiar as any other hon. Member with the provisions for judicial review. Those are the remedies that will be available.

Mr. Hughes

What I want to know is whether the traffic management guidance will set out effectively the duties of the local authority. That is what we are trying to insert in the Bill. I cannot speak for the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) in saying that, if we were to receive from the Government an undertaking that this requirement will be set out in a secondary document, we should at least know that the local authority would have to have regard to these categories. That would certainly help us, and I am sure that it would be of interest to the people who will ultimately be affected by the proposals.

11.30 pm
Mr. Chope

After the local plans have been drawn up, the interests about whom the hon. Gentleman is concerned will be taken into account when the orders giving effect to those plans are drafted. There will be consultation and, under existing legislation, there is provision for a public inquiry. Anyone who feels that his interests is ignored could have his say at that stage.

Mr. Simon Hughes

It would be helpful if, in due course, the Minister were to set out for the benefit of those who are interested—I am thinking especially of hon. Members representing London constituencies—what specific duties, by way of consultation with residents and businesses, it is envisaged a local authority will have.

Mr. Chope

I shall be happy to do what the hon. Gentleman suggests.

I hope that I have been able to allay some concern. The traffic management guidance will not be identical to, but will in a sense be based on, the guidance that was issued in 1987. Hon. Members who examine it will see that it goes into quite a lot of detail. I hope that, in those circumstances, the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Mr. Spearing

It seems that there are one or two misunderstandings. I do not think that I suggested—certainly I did not mean to suggest—that the Secretary of State for the Environment, or any other Minister, would not examine the guidelines for the red routes. My suggestion was that the Secretary of State would not be able to give particular orders the attention that those affected think they should have. I have told the story about the Secretary of State being informed that the Secretary of State was going to serve a notice in respect of his own property. Surely that amounts to a warning. I did not suggest that the guidelines would not be looked at. It is a question of detail. Because of the facts of time and politics, cases are unlikely to receive the attention that they deserve.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is right to emphasise the question of residents. I have mentioned the cases of disabled people and children, but the hon. Gentleman brought to mind something that is even more important. The amendment that I drew up about a week ago referred to residents on and adjacent to any proposed priority route. The knock-on effect of a priority route will be significant for those whose properties are adjacent to it.

Let us consider the case of an existing priority route where certain parking is allowed, or where traffic wardens' discretion is exercised reasonably. Here, people will seek parking places, possibly for some distance, along the side roads—a matter that has been mentioned already. In an earlier intervention, I mentioned Barking road, which is not very far from the ground of West Ham United. Parking problems have arisen there already, although the situation generally is well organised by the police. But in such circumstances all sorts of things could happen. These red routes will cause a great deal of knock-on trouble. What about the question of property values, for instance?

Amenities include values, and I should imagine that the value of any residential or other property adjacent to or especially facing a red route, would take a dive in value almost immediately after the maps are published. Our exchanges may cause estate agents throughout London to seek copies of the map that was available to the Committee. I can imagine Tory Members receiving letters from their constituents, saying "The value of my property is going down. We did not know that these would be red routes, and they have reduced the value of our property by x per cent."

The Minister may consider that that is inevitable. However, to instruct local authorities to take the map into account but deprive them of it is quite extraordinary. The Minister's responses so far have been that the Government could include it in the guidelines for red routes, but he did not undertake that the same considerations—virtually the words in the amendment—would be included in the Bill. In response to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, the Minister carefully and skilfully avoided making that commitment. I am surprised, because he is only taking it into account. If he does not include it in the new guidelines, he is implying that the Government cannot or should not take it into account, which centralises the matter even more.

The Minister has taken some matters on board, and I hope that, before the Bill is considered in another place, he will publish the draft guidelines for red routes. He referred to guidance that was published earlier for traffic management after the abolition of the Greater London Council. Why, therefore, can he not publish the Government's objectives? After all, they are referred to in the Bill and will be very important, I hope that those who consider the Bill in another place will take note of those objectives, guidance notes or statutory guidance. Can they really consider the issue before the objectives are published? Had I been on the Committee, I should have wanted the draft objectives and guidance to be available because, without them, the merits of earlier clauses could not have been properly assessed.

The Minister has taken account of some of those matters. He may wish to negative the amendment, but I feel strongly enough not to withdraw it, in the hope that the matter will be taken up in another place.

Amendment negatived.

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