§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Conway.]
12.32 am§ Mr. David Hanson (Delyn)The subject of this debate is of great interest and importance to my constituents, especially to those people who live, as I do, in the town of Flint or who travel through Flint, for work or leisure reasons. Especially at this time of the year, holidaymakers travel through Flint in their thousands.
As with all Adjournment debates, I wish that the issue had not reached this stage. Unfortunately, it has done so, due to a variety of factors that have conspired to ensure that Flint's travel problem remains unsolved. The need for a bypass in Flint has long been recognised. When I was first selected as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Delyn about seven years ago, many people believed that the issue was about to be resolved by the implementation of a coastal route. It may help if I outline how we have arrived at this position and the need for the debate.
Although this is not directly a Welsh Office scheme, the Welsh Office has had a major influence on events so far. Flint, in the south of my constituency, is a pivotal town on the coastal road into north Wales. The A548 which passes through the town carries, according to current estimates for a 12-hour day, 10,000 vehicles between 7 am and 7 pm. A large amount of industrial and commercial traffic enters the town, bound for industrial areas to the north of Flint, the recently abolished enterprise zone area and towns along the coastal road in the far north of my constituency. Local traffic is also heavy. At the peak of the tourist season, as now, there is a great deal of additional traffic, which causes chaos for local people at weekends.
The need for a bypass is accepted by all who have been involved with the town and its welfare. In response to demands for a bypass in 1985, a public consultation exercise was undertaken by the county council to obtain views on two possible routes for a bypass—an inland route and a coastal route. Local opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of the coastal route, but the opposite view was expressed by environmental groups, including Cadw—Welsh Historic Monuments—and the then Nature Conservancy Council. Following consultation, however, the coastal route for Flint was adopted by the county council as its preferred route and the scheme was prepared to the stage where planning permission could be applied for by the county council.
In June 1989, the then county surveyor and bridgemaster applied to the county council for deemed planning permission for the coastal route. The application included an environmental statement because of the effect that the scheme could have had on Flint castle and the Dee estuary, a site of special scientific interest and a special protection area under European legislation. Copies of the application and all representations were forwarded to the Welsh Office in accordance with the procedures.
The Secretary of State informed Clwyd county council that, because the issues raised in the objections were of more than a local nature, the county council should not determine the application and that it should be passed to him for determination. He subsequently decided to hold a public inquiry into the coastal route, which was held in March 1990. After consideration of the inspector's report, the Secretary of State informed the county council that he 805 was refusing planning permission for the scheme on the ground of its environmental effect on Flint castle and the Dee estuary. In my view, the Flint castle objection by the Secretary of State was sadly misguided.
Flint castle is the hidden monument of north Wales. The town is very proud of it but, passing through the town on the A548, it is very difficult to see it. The coastal route would have opened the castle to a new travelling public who would have seen it in all its glory. It would not have damaged the castle. The environmental objections made at the time were valid, but they could be overcome especially when viewed with the alternative with which I shall deal in a moment.
The inspector's conclusion on the county council's coastal route option was that there was no reason to suppose that an alternative way of bypassing Flint could not be found. Clwyd county council then decided to look afresh at solutions to find a bypass for Flint and appointed consulting engineers to carry out a new feasibility study. The findings were that there was only one effective, feasible route remaining—the inland route, which was not dissimilar to that taken to consultation in 1985.
The new inland route was the subject of a further consultation exercise held in June last year to obtain the views of the general public and a wide range of other consultees. Due to strong local opinion against the route, and a demand to resurrect the coastal route, the council did not in the end adopt the new proposal of the inland route as its preferred route.
Shortly after my election to the House last year, feelings were running very high. The inland route proposed by the county council was met wih horror in most of Flint and in the neighbouring village of Bagillt. A genuine upsurge of public feeling against the inland route ensued, not orchestrated by any political party but reflected by all politicians at a local level.
The inland route would have passed near to many properties in encircling the town, cut through agricultural and residential land, sliced the local golf course in half, bordered a children's play area in the process and removed much of Flint's remaining open spaces, including the town's major recreation area and green space, Cornist park and hall which is owned by the borough council. In doing so, it would have failed in the key objective of reducing industrial traffic to the industrial areas of Flint and, in particular, Castle park industrial estate. Environmentally, the inland route would have devastated Flint.
I was besieged by letters 10:1 against the inland route and by petitions; concern was expressed at my surgeries and an action group was formed called FAIR, Flint Against the Inland Route. The Member of the European Parliament, Joe Wilson, Flint town council, Flint borough council members and two county councillors, Alf Jones and Alec Aldridge, made their opposition very clear to the town and the public at large. I am pleased to see that councillor John Hughes, a member of Flint town council, has travelled to London to witness this debate.
The county council's consultation exercise was clear: an inland route was unacceptable to Flint and its people and a public meeting organised by the town council highlighted the opposition which I fully share. Clwyd county council wrote to the Minister of State, Welsh Office asking for a 806 meeting to discuss the issues involved because both the coastal route and the inland route were unacceptable and traffic was still building up.
That request for a meeting was refused on the valid ground that the Minister might in future be required to make a decision on subsequent planning application and he could not prejudice his position. Subsequent requests to the Minister from me for a meeting with the county council were refused in similar terms. I understand that the Minister's split role in Wales, as the Minister responsible for roads and for planning, creates difficulties, but that has not helped matters to progress. However, I fully understand and accept the Minister's difficult position in those circumstances.
Since the consultation exercise took place, further developments have occurred. The Welsh Office and Clwyd county council have given the go-ahead for a third Dee crossing that will bring more traffic to Flint. The proposed crossing will reach Wales some two miles south of Flint, with the resulting predicted traffic flow in Flint rising from 14,000 vehicles a day to 24,000, according to local county council estimates. It is estimated that 12 per cent. of that traffic will be new traffic as opposed to diverted traffic.
The construction of the third Dee crossing will also result in some redistribution of traffic within Flint town centre and in respect of its routing either via the A5119 to Northop and on to the A55 or the A548 towards Oakenholt. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) and I fully support the idea of the Dee crossing, but it must be accepted that it will cause additional traffic to come into Flint in my constituency. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside welcomes the proposal which will relieve traffic in his constituency, it will cause problems for my constituency. However, we are at one on the issue.
The problem in a nutshell is that there are two possible routes for a bypass through Flint. One of those routes is wanted by the people of Flint, but that route has been refused following a decision by the Secretary of State. The other route is very much opposed by the people of Flint while traffic continues to build up and there is likely to be more traffic in future.
From the 1990 public inquiry and the 1992 public consultation exercise, it is known that local opinion is strongly against an inland route and in favour of a coastal route while Cadw and all national and local environmental groups are strongly against a coastal route and have no objection to the inland route. As you will appreciate from that brief history, Madam Deputy Speaker, the solution to the problem will not be straightforward.
In essence, the dilemma is that, although almost everyone agrees that a bypass is needed, the public have forcefully rejected an inland route and a coastal route has been rejected by the Secretary of State on the powerful grounds of adverse environmental impact on an area of international importance in conservation terms. Faced with that, what are the solutions? In the wider context, we can all agree that it would be desirable to reduce the traffic entering Flint.
I should like to see less reliance on the car and the internal combustion engine. Major investment in British Rail to take passenger transport and freight on to the railways would be welcome. Similarly, more tourists should be carried by rail and it would be perfectly adequate for north Wales if that could be achieved. In 807 addition, improvements in public transport to service Flint and the coastal towns would be welcome, as would other measures.
In the short term, despite all those issues that could and should be addressed by all involved in transport in Clwyd, there will still be a need for a bypass. I hope that the Minister will tonight address two key areas in particular that will help to break the current impasse.
I would welcome an honest opinion from the Minister, as the strategic Minister for roads in Wales, about his view of traffic in Flint, the implications of the Dee crossing for traffic in Flint and for the coast road and the merits of the routes that have been proposed to date. I hope that the Minister will agree that a bypass is needed. It would be a great help to my community if he would recognise that this evening.
Also, and more important, I hope that the Minister will address another issue. Does he agree that it would be helpful at highways and planning levels to have informal discussions about traffic on the A548 between officers of the Welsh Office and members and officers of Clwyd county council? We currently have an impasse—no coastal bypass, no inland bypass, and more traffic. I recognise the difficulties for the Minister with his split responsibilities, but I still hope that he will agree that open discussions with the county council on how to resolve an issue that everybody agrees exists would be in the best interests of all.
Is there a modification—for example, to the coastal route—that would be better received by the Welsh Office? Is there assistance that the Welsh Office could give to examine positive options for the bypass in other areas? After all, in his own constituency of Conwy, the Minister has seen miracles worked in respect of a bypass. The need for dialogue is vital. No one in the county council wants to follow the path of resubmission of a revised coastal route, only to face planning bog-down, further inquiries, further costs and a negative result—a costly path at public expense.
No one in the county council wants to proceed with an inland route that remains unacceptable to the people of Flint—the very people whom it is designed to assist—yet, without dialogue, impasse will continue to reign and the misery of traffic in Flint will worsen. I do not believe that the discussions that could take place would be prejudicial. In the light of the impasse, the Welsh Office surely has a duty to examine and assist in the strategic view of the bypass issue.
My firm view remains that a revised coastal route is achievable, that the environmental concerns of that route remain far less damaging than the inland option and that of no action. All that I ask is that, at the very least, the two parties that can most influence the situation, the Welsh Office and the county council, meet, talk and examine the options on a non-committal basis. As the Member of Parliament for Flint and a resident of Flint, I have called for this debate because it remains an issue that is for the well-being of my community. People in Flint need traffic peace. Industry in Flint needs sound infrastructure. Tourists visiting north Wales and travelling through Flint need trouble-free travel. Above all, the environment in Flint needs to be protected in a modern age.
It is not acceptable to my community to face the prospect of an increase in traffic in Flint to 24,000 cars a day in coming years. That is the worst of all options, and 808 I would be failing in my duty as the Member of Parliament for the town if I did not bring it to the attention of the House this evening.
§ The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts)As the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) is clearly aware, responsibility for the local road network within Delyn rests with Clwyd county council. The A548, which passes through Flint, is such a local road, and improvements are the responsibility of the county council. A number of improvements to the A548 have been undertaken, and others are planned to help to meet the needs of the area.
The statutory planning procedures, which involve wide consultation with the public, ensure that the impact of significant new road proposals are fully and publicly appraised where necessary. Those procedures apply as much to the proposed Flint bypass as to other major proposals.
Clwyd county council, as local highway authority, undertook a feasibility study in 1983 to assess possible routes to bypass Flint. Of the six routes originally chosen, four were rejected and two remained—an inland route and a coastal route.
In 1985, as the hon. Gentleman described, the county council carried out a public participation exercise on those two routes. Almost 800 people responded, and 79 per cent. of local residents wanted a bypass and 82 per cent. of the respondents wanted the coastal route. There was, however, strong opposition to both routes on environmental grounds.
The authority subsequently decided on the coastal route, and in 1989–90 the scheme was conditionally accepted by the Welsh Office for transport grant support to meet the preparation costs involved in developing the proposal.
The design of the scheme and the resolution of statutory requirements were always matters for Clwyd county council. In keeping with normal procedures, it sought to obtain planning permission for the road, using powers under regulation 4 of the Town and Country Planning General Regulations 1976—under which the county council was empowered, subject to certain conditions, to grant, by making two resolutions, planning permission for developments that it proposed to undertake itself.
The proposed development attracted significant objections. Organisations such as the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Cambrian Archaeological Association, the Clwyd-Powys Archeological Trust and the Deeside Naturalists Society were concerned about the potential environmental impact.
There were requests for the Secretary of State to call in the planning application for his own determination, and they were given the most careful consideration. The Secretary of State's long-established approach is that applications should be called in for him to determine only when they raise planning matters of more than local importance. That approach recognises that matters of day-to-day importance should properly be resolved by elected local authority members accountable to the communities that they serve.
809 Only in particular circumstances, when matters of more than local significance are raised, will there be justification for taking matters out of local hands. In the case of Flint bypass, the then Secretary of State concluded that there were sufficient grounds for intervention. As a consequence, the county council was required in effect to make application to the Secretary of State for planning permission to construct the bypass on the coastal route.
Two main areas of concern underlay that decision. One related to the possible effect on Flint castle. The castle and town was the first to be planted in north Wales by Edward I, and there was concern that the bypass might have an adverse effect on both the castle and its environs—particularly in terms of the area's appearance, in forming a physical barrier between the town, the castle and the sea.
The other concern was that the route proposed by Clwyd county council encroached on a site of special scientific interest and bird habitats of international and national importance. There was concern that the road would destroy part of those protected areas and could disturb bird life over a wider area because of the noise and movement likely to be generated.
In the light of those wider concerns, the proposed development was called in by the then Secretary of State on 16 August 1989 and arrangements were made for a public local inquiry, which began on 6 March 1990. It considered the likely effect of the coastal bypass route on Flint castle and on conservation, and in relation to national and local planning policies, and the likely environmental impact on the immediate and surrounding areas.
Following a full inquiry and receipt of the inspector's report, the then Secretary of State gave careful consideration to the proposal and issued his decision letter on 17 September 1990. He accepted the inspector's conclusion that there was need for a bypass for Flint on traffic and economic grounds, and that the proposed coastal route would be an extremely intrusive and incongruous element in the landscape of the Dee estuary which no ameliorating measures could render visually acceptable. Further, it was acknowledged that the proposed bypass would cause unacceptable harm to the Dee estuary's natural habitat which would not be rendered acceptable by the proposed measures.
During the inquiry, evidence was presented on the planning merits of the alternative inland route. The Secretary of State concluded that examination of that alternative route was a material consideration in the application. He did not consider that his role was to make a choice between the routes, but confined his consideration to whether the need for the development could be met elsewhere.
The detailed appraisal of the two routes, and of any other alternatives that may become available, is a matter for the county council following appropriate consultation. However the Secretary of State was not satisfied that it had been clearly demonstrated that there was no alternative route. He agreed with the inspector that, on the basis of the evidence provided to the inquiry, there was no reason to suppose that the coastal route was the only way to provide a bypass for Flint. Therefore, the requirement to build it on this route was not demonstrated. In the absence of 810 convincing evidence ruling out alternative routes, the Secretary of State concluded that the proposed route was unacceptable because of its effects on Flint castle and its setting, the landscape quality of the Dee estuary and the unacceptable harm to the natural habitats of the estuary. Having issued his decision, the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State in the matter ended. The provision of the bypass and consideration of the route it must take remain the responsibility of Clwyd county council as the local highway authority.
I fully understand and appreciate the arguments already put forward by the hon. Gentleman and others for a bypass for Flint. Indeed, the Welsh Office accepted those arguments when it conditionally accepted the proposed bypass for transport grant as long ago as 1989–90. That said, the responsibility for taking forward plans to provide the road must rest with Clwyd county council as the local highway authority. The county council must reconsider how best to proceed using the established procedures.
The county council may decide to proceed to seek planning permission for the inland route on which it consulted the local community in 1992. It may also, of course, decide to re-examine possibilities for providing a route along the coast. Clearly, whichever option is chosen, the county council will need to consider local opinion fully and to consult bodies with particular environmental interests. Whether it decides to proceed with one or two route options. the resulting planning applications will be referred to the Secretary of State so that consideration can be given to whether call-in would be appropriate. I must again stress that any consideration of call-in would be made on the basis of whether the proposed development raised planning matters of more than local significance. I cannot prejudge whether an application will be called in.
The hon. Gentleman asked for a meeting between officials of Clwyd county council and the Welsh Office to consider the way forward. The Secretary of State has well-defined responsibilities, which have already been used, to call in and determine the county council's earlier planning application for a bypass following a coastal route. The Department would, of course, be ready to advise on procedural matters. Should the council be unsure about how it might proceed, I suggest that it writes to me setting out the procedural issues on which it requires guidance.
But I must emphasise that the Department's involvement is inevitably restricted by the need to avoid prejudicing my right hon. Friend's statutory position. It will not be possible for Welsh Office Ministers or officials to advise on the merits of individual schemes.
There is continued strong support for the need to bypass Flint so as to improve the living conditions of its residents, to ease congestion on the A548 and to contribute to the environmental and economic improvements taking place in north-east Wales. Given this, it should be possible for the county council to work with Delyn borough council, the local community, agencies and interested groups to agree a way forward which would result in the early implementation of the scheme. The hon. Member rightly raised the issue of increased traffic problems in Flint that might arise following completion of the third Dee crossing. The county council is aware of the potential problems and while it sees a bypass of Flint as the long-term solution, it does, I understand, believe that any 811 increase in traffic through Flint, following the opening of the crossing, can be dealt with by traffic management measures.
The Dee crossing and Flint bypass can each be justified in its own right. The previous Secretary of State was pleased to announce last year that resources will be made available to start the crossing in 1994–95; delaying that until a solution has been found to the Flint bypass would prolong unnecessarily congestion in Shotton and Connah's Quay, and the problems of access to the Deeside industrial park.
The hon. Member has raised an important issue, relevant both to his constituents and to the wider public. An efficient road network is vital to our economic welfare. It contributes to prosperity at both national arid local 812 levels. The hon. Member is fortunate to represent a constituency in a part of Wales that has seen substantial improvements in the road network. The A55, a trunk road for which the Welsh Office is responsible, provides a high quality link to the British and European motorway networks, a link to markets and to prosperity. I am sure we shall see further developments in future years.
I must stress once again to the hon. Gentleman that the planning for the Flint bypass is a matter, in the first instance, for the county authority. If there are procedural difficulties, I am only too anxious to help. However, I cannot assist the council in the choice of route to put forward.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at one minute past One o'clock.