HC Deb 06 February 1995 vol 254 cc60-1W
Mr. Byers

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff his Department employs on a regional basis in each standard English region; what is the cost of running these regional operations; what was the total budget for each region in the latest available year; and what are the main purposes for which the budget is used.

Mr. Norris

The numerical and financial information requested is contained in the following table.

The regional programme budget is used for statutory advertising associated with orders under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (£430k); provision of venues for public inquiries into orders under TCPA 1990 (£20k); and consultancies and studies (£300k).

Mr. Watts

[holding answer 2 February 1995]Expected additional traffic flows on the Dartford-Thurrock river crossing on the M25 resulting from the opening of an intermediate station at Ebbsfleet were set out on Ove Arup and Partners' final report on Ebbsfleet traffic impacts, which was published in January 1994 at the same time as Union Railways' report to the Government on the channel tunnel rail link. I regret that the report does not provide the information in the form requested but the following figures show the number of traffic movements, additional to expected levels of traffic, generated by a station at Ebbsfleet:

AM peak PMpeak
2001:
To Crossing 77 (+1.4 per cent.) 154 (+3.3 per cent.)
From Crossing 135 (+3.7 per cent.) 173 (+3.8 per cent.)
2011:
To Crossing 103 (+1.6 per cent.) 205 (+3.8 per cent.)
From Crossing 180 (44.1 per cent.) 231 (+4.3 per cent.)

The expectation is that these movements will be almost entirely from non-lorry traffic.