§ Mr. CLARRYasked the Minister of Transport what provision, if any, has been made in schemes approved by him for Road Fund grant under the five-year plan to accommodate traffic on the roads in the counties of Somerset and Monmouthshire which will be used for traffic approaching the proposed road-bridge over the River Severn?
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHASubject to the approval by Parliament of the Bill deposited by the Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire County Councils, I have agreed to make a grant from the Road1426W Fund of 75 per cent. of the cost, estimated at £278,000, of constructing the approach roads necessary to connect the new bridge with the Gloucester-Newport Road in Monmouthshire and with existing roads in Gloucestershire. I have had no application from Somersetshire in this connection. The site proposed is a good deal further up the Severn than the mouth of the River Avon, which is the Somerset boundary. There are further schemes amounting in all to some half-million pounds in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire towards which I shall be prepared to give a 75 per cent. grant, which are more distant repercussions of the new bridge scheme.