M5 Widening (Whittington) (Hansard, 12 February 1996)

§ Mr. Peter Luff (Worcester)

I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this subject, which is of great importance to my constituents, who are directly affected by it.

Since its widening near junction 7, noise levels from the M5 have often been intolerable at the village of Whittington. They are also a problem for other Worcestershire residents. For example, at Harvington, similar noise problems have resulted from the construction of a bypass. I am aware of the keen interest of my hon. Friend the Member for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) in that issue. The House may understand why I am closely following events at Harvington.

The systematic failure of the Highways Agency to act on the issue of noise, which is apparent at Whittington and Harvington, must not be repeated in other road-building projects. We need new roads and road widening, but the case for those roads will be weakened if events at Whittington and Harvington are repeated.

Often it is only complaints that come to the Floor of the House, so I shall begin with tributes. My first is to the Minister and to those in his private office for their close personal interest in the matter. I am sorry that the Minister's only reward is to be dragged here tonight at this uncivilised hour, but that is politics.

Secondly, I pay tribute to the chief executive of the Highways Agency, Mr. Lawrie Haynes, who recently visited Whittington to see the situation for himself. As luck would have it, he chose the quietest day for about a year. Thirdly, to be fair to the Highways Agency, I pay tribute to it for the spectacular success of the widening project, the side effects of which we are discussing tonight.

What genius originally designed the M5 through my constituency as a two-lane highway, I do not know. Holidaymakers and business traffic from the south-west to the midlands and the north, and vice versa, came to regard the two-lane section as one of the worst experiences known to drivers in the United Kingdom. Increasing congestion and tailbacks made the widening project essential. It has transformed journeys for the better. It was completed ahead of schedule and significantly below budget—an important point for my hon. Friend the Minister to consider. The congestion that obtained on the M5 deterred use of the motorway, as other routes were found by those who had to make the journey from north to south, and reduced speeds. It is logical that widening has increased use and speeds, with serious consequences for my constituents who live near the motorway.

Tonight I intend to concentrate on issues for the Highways Agency, not the issue of cash compensation for the loss in property values that resulted from the noise, which is a matter for the district valuers. However, it is fair to record in parenthesis the dissatisfaction of the people of Whittington with the approach of the district valuer. He seems—I realise that this may be an uncharitable interpretation—to have sought to pick off those whom he could get to settle for low sums first and 780 use them as precedents for future settlements. I believe that some people have settled for ridiculously low sums as a result.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will bear that aspect in mind. The many tenants of the local housing association who live in Whittington are, of course, not eligible for compensation and neither cash compensation nor secondary glazing can insulate a garden or restore the semi-rural calm of a village.

Tonight I want to do two things—to describe what has happened and to seek an undertaking from the Minister to settle the facts of the resultant noise increase by persuading the Highways Agency to measure the noise over a sustained period. We shall then know who is right and who is wrong. To me, it is a simple matter of common sense that the villagers are right, but I accept the need for proof, which the agency has so far been unable or unwilling to provide.

I have been able to pursue this case only because two particularly diligent residents have procured and used their own noise meters, which have consistently proved the Highways Agency wrong. The story of the noise impact on Whittington village is a catalogue of errors and omissions by the agency. For example—there are shades here of British Rail's handling of the early channel tunnel rail link plans—when it did its initial work, the agency did not include on its plans houses that were already built.

The motorway was widened using the so-called parallel widening technique. The need for some noise mitigation measures was always recognised, and the original plans allowed for an intermittent small mound on the old carriageway, which was made redundant as a result of the widening technique used.

The calculation method used by the agency led its noise consultants to conclude that the measures would dramatically reduce noise levels at Whittington from the pre-widening level of about 60 dB to a post-widening level of about 56 dB. In a letter to one of my constituents written on 8 July 1992, during the construction of the widened motorway, the agency stated: when the motorway widening is complete the traffic will be further away from your property and a noise reduction mound will have been built along the end of Berkeley Close. Although the amount of traffic will increase, the effect will be a reduction in noise". How wrong can one be?

During construction, residents expressed concerns about the likely effectiveness of the proposed measures and the agency agreed to use spare rubble to make the proposed intermittent mound, into a continuous one from the A422 to 80 m from the so-called Church farm overbridge, where there was no room for a mound as there was no redundant carriageway.

In fact, a letter from the agency dated 30 September 1993 suggested that this extension was undertaken at the request of the Department. If so, I am grateful for its early interest. It also said—this is an important point to bear in mind in my later remarks—that any further extension would be too remote … to make any further difference to noise levels. Thousands of tons of rubble were generated by the works, which sadly were often dumped where there were no houses to protect. That could all too easily have been used to protect Whittington with a much more effective bund at little or no extra cost, but that opportunity has 781 been lost. As I drove along the widened section of the M5 on Saturday night, I looked at what seemed to be much higher bunds protecting much smaller communities than Whittington.

After the opening of the widened motorway, noise levels in Whittington went up sharply. The response of the agency was simply to refuse to believe my constituents. The 80 m gap that it said would be left was in fact 200 m—a huge miscalculation that the agency could not explain.

Months of lobbying got the agency to come back to measure noise levels for the first time. That was finally agreed at a site meeting on 17 December 1993. Representatives of the agency who came to the meeting were visibly surprised by the level of noise in Whittington. The meeting enabled us to settle a number of important misunderstandings—for example, that the road is in a cutting at this point, which it is not. The agency also accepted that the road surface was considerably higher than it was pre-widening, which it had consistently denied. In my view, that increased height is a major factor in the increased noise levels.

The promised monitoring took place between 20 and 26 January 1994. It happened only because two of my constituents—Barrie Redding and Stuart Cottam—borrowed a crude noise meter and did the agency's work for it, hanging from bedroom windows and touring the village with the meter.

Over a week—once again, sadly and inevitably, a quiet week because of weather conditions—the metering survey was conducted. The Highways Agency at last accepted that its original predictions were grossly inaccurate. One official said: "Off the record, we made a horrible mistake." That mistake was discovered only because of the diligence and perseverance of my constituents.

A decision was rightly taken to mitigate retrospectively rather than to undertake wholesale insulation of the village. Obviously, that was the preferable solution. Gardens cannot be insulated. Reducing the noise levels overall is the preferred solution for my constituents.

On 15 April 1994, the agency wrote: The result of these calculations is that in the Church Lane-Berkeley Close area noise levels can be returned to their pre-widening levels (or better) by the erection of a 3 metre high noise fence for 250 metres northwards from the overbridge and this is what we now propose. At this point, the agency formally apologised for its errors, and gave this undertaking: We shall seek to rectify the situation as indicated as soon as we can. The House will understand the fury of local residents when they read in the Worcester Evening News on Tuesday 6 February, when news of this Adjournment debate became public, that a spokesman for the Highways Agency had said to that newspaper the previous day: We remain to be convinced the noise levels are worse than prewidening. The motorway was widened away from the village. From what I have already said, the House will know that the agency has conceded that noise levels are higher than pre-widening, both in writing and at private meetings. It would not have done the inadequate things it has done if that spokesman was right.

782 In a letter to me on 16 June 1995, my hon. Friend the Minister said: The Highways Agency has accepted that the original noise calculations were an under-estimate". What on earth, or who on earth, did that spokesman consult? How incompetent can an agency get? It has formally conceded that noise levels are at or around 66 dB, and that pre-widening levels were around 60 dB. My constituents maintain, with good evidence, that noise levels are actually much higher. Is it any wonder that my constituents are so cynical about the agency's intentions?

The agency has since proposed merely to fill in the gap with fencing at the point where it originally said that there was no room for a mound and that a mound would have no effect. It said that that would reduce noise levels in the whole village to pre-widening levels or better. That conflicting advice came from the same individual in the agency. Confronting the agency with its conflicting advice led it to accept that the new proposal would be inadequate. Residents of Whittington came to the conclusion that the agency was trying to fob them off, and who can blame them?

Eventually, the agency settled on a further proposal: an extra fence on top of the 2 m bund and the 3 m noise fence in the gap. That measure was installed only after much and totally unacceptable delay. The reasons for the delay are well documented, and as they are not central to the debate I shall not labour them. The Minister will understand, however, how the delay has infuriated my constituents.

Although the villagers felt that the new proposal would also be inadequate, the agency said that it would assess its efficacy. At a meeting, the director of the motorway widening unit promised that more work would be done if the fence was ineffective. My hon. Friend the Minister said in a letter to me on 23 August: The best way forward now is for the Agency to erect the additional noise fence and wait to see its efficacy. On 18 October 1994, almost a year earlier, Mr. Oddy of the Highways Agency, had written: Let us get the mitigation in place"— it took a year to get it in place— if there is doubt after that about the extent of immediate and future noise reduction we can consider repeating the noise metering we did before, and further mitigation if that seems justified Only one inference can be drawn from those statements: if the measures are inadequate, more will be done.

The villagers wanted a 5 m fence throughout, but were restricted to 3 m because of the agency's concern not to spoil their view. If only the agency were as concerned about noise as it is about my constituents' view. The fence has finally been erected, many months late. Not surprisingly, there has been no reduction in noise levels.

The final straw is the new refusal of the agency to honour previous commitments to monitor the situation, which were clearly implied in meetings and ministerial correspondence. On 1 November, my hon. Friend the Minister, presumably on the advice of the agency, wrote to me to say that the result of the work would not be monitored. He said: The Noise Insulation regulations require that predicted noise levels are assessed (by calculation) … not by noise measurement. In other words, not only will previous commitments not be honoured by the agency, but the methodology that will settle the whole matter is the one that failed to predict 783 noise levels accurately in the first place. Since the amelioration measures were put in place, further noise measurements with more sophisticated noise meters conducted by my constituents have found very high noise levels—often reaching 70 dB and higher.

I recently attended a special meeting at Whittington village hall organised by the parish council, which was attended by 50 people from 40 households. Many apologies for absence were made. As the total number of residents on the electoral roll is 427, that is an extremely high turnout for a Saturday morning. The summary of a note read to that meeting says it all: we are the victims of a horrible mistake by the highways agency. They have now had two attempts at effective noise mitigation measures and have failed miserably both times. My constituents are no longer prepared to settle for the promise of further amelioration measures. They require—I hope that the Minister can promise it in his speech—a sustained measurement of the noise levels in their village to prove who is right and who is wrong. A return to pre-widening noise levels across their village remains their ambition, and rightly so. All I ask is for a repeat of the January 1994 exercise, but for rather more than a week. I would suggest a month, and in varying meteorological conditions—relating to both wind direction and atmospheric pressure. After all my constituents have been through, I also hope that there will a reasonably generous interpretation of any results.

I hope that the agency will then act on the spirit of the findings and not necessarily the letter of the law. Involving in advance the parish council with the methodology will be crucial to its eventual acceptance by my constituents. They want to know that the chances of the monitoring being done during a freak quiet period are minimised.

My hon. Friend the Minister and his office have been consistently helpful to me throughout the whole sorry episode. I very much regret the fact that he has been called to the House tonight to answer for the errors of the Highways Agency, which has failed completely in its duty to my constituents. Such failures will lead to more resistance to bypasses and to widening schemes. It is essential to sort out this mess once and for all.

§ The Minister for Railways and Roads (Mr. John Watts)

I thank, or at least congratulate, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) for raising this issue and for his kind words about my private office. I am aware that my hon. Friend has taken a keen interest in the matter since the widening of the M5 was completed. He has with his usual diligence taken up the case on behalf of his constituents at Whittington.

His constituents are concerned that the volume of traffic noise has increased since the completion of the widening of the M5 between Warndon and Strensham in 1993. I sympathise greatly with the concerns of local people because I know that excessive traffic noise can be intrusive, although it has to be said that we can never fully eliminate it.

The motorway was widened from two to three lanes between 1991 and 1993 to relieve congestion and enhance road safety along the 13-mile section between Warndon and Strensham. My hon. Friend confirmed how necessary that widening was. As he explained, the widening was 784 carried out by the innovative parallel widening method, whereby one completely new carriageway is built without affecting traffic on the existing motorway. The original carriageway is then converted into the other carriageway of the newly widened motorway. As he said, the new carriageway was built further away from the village, so that, under normal circumstances and assumptions, one would have expected some reduction in noise intrusion. Part of the old carriageway was broken up for an earth mound to be constructed on it.

There was wide consultation with members of the public before the scheme was implemented, and a public inquiry was held. Objections and representations were considered fully and a number of measures were incorporated into the scheme to try to reduce its impact on the environment. We took particular care to try to reduce the impact from noise on the communities by providing earth mounds and fencing and by offering noise insulation. The objective was to limit noise levels as far as possible to the level prevailing before the widening took place, despite the growth in traffic.

To help assess the need for those measures, our consultants calculate the noise likely to be generated by traffic using the widened motorway at a future date, usually 15 years after the road has been opened. This was done by taking the known traffic levels and increasing them to take account of forecast traffic growth. Account is taken of topography and any other barriers to sound that would reduce the noise before calculating the level at, for example, a house close to the road.

The detailed methods used in the calculations are laid down by the noise insulation regulations. Those calculations showed that noise from the new road would be around 56 to 57 dB in the design year of 2008 at the facades of buildings in Church lane, assuming that the mound was built. However, I acknowledge that there was inconsistency in the figures, although the broad range was considered a reasonable indicator. Based on those figures, we provided various noise mounds and fencing, including a noise mound to screen properties in Church lane and Berkeley close near Whittington. We also offered noise insulation to 13 properties in the Whittington area, although some of the offers were declined.

Following the opening of the widened motorway, a number of complaints were made by people living nearby. Officials from the Highways Agency visited the area, and it was clear to them that the actual noise levels were higher than expected. They therefore arranged for measurements to be made, which confirmed that the noise levels were, at around 63 to 66 dB, substantially higher than those calculated, and were expected to increase further by about 1.5 dB 15 years after opening.

It became clear that mistakes had been made in calculating the noise impact of the scheme. Clearly, I regret that. We are pursuing that matter separately with our consultants. Given those new facts, we agreed to increase the length and height of the screening for Church lane and Berkeley close to provide a barrier aimed at screening the properties in Church lane against noise.

The screen now runs for a distance of 733 yd northwards from Church farm overbridge along the motorway. Through a combination of fencing and earth mounding, it is now 3 m—or, as I prefer to say, almost 10 ft—high. The residents had asked for a 6 m, or 19.5 ft, high fence, but I am afraid we could not agree to this, 785 because the cost would have been disproportionate to the benefits that it was predicted to provide. It did take a while to put the work in hand, partly because of the need to obtain planning permission. The work itself was not straightforward. There were delays in obtaining materials of the specified quality. Nevertheless, the work was eventually completed in accordance with the design.

I know that the residents of Whittington remain sceptical about the effects of the noise mitigation measures, in particular the noise fence already provided. In view of the history, one can quite understand why they should be so sceptical. They maintain that, if we had had more accurate noise assessments before construction, we would have increased the height of the bund. At this stage, that has to be regarded as speculative.

However, in view of their continuing concerns, I have—as my hon. Friend has asked in the debate—told 786 the Highways Agency to appoint a firm of independent consultants to carry out a fresh noise survey and to take further noise measurements over a period of four to five weeks. My hon. Friend's request for a one-month survey will be met by that. The survey will establish what the actual noise levels are, and will also honour the undertakings that he said were given previously.

I recognise that the local residents are genuinely concerned that we have not done enough, but I hope that the further work will prove to my hon. Friend and his constituents that we take this seriously. Once the survey results are available, we shall look at all the issues again and decide whether any further action is justified. We shall, of course, let him and the local residents know the outcome of the further surveys.