§ Colonel Beamishasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is aware that, on Saturday 28th February, following the Rugby International between England and France, several 138W thousand cars where held up in a traffic jam which took more than 2½ hours to clear; what proposals he has received from the authorities concerned for the improvement of roads in the neighbourhood of Twickenham and Kingston; and when it is hoped that those improvements for the execution of which he is responsible will have been completed.
§ Mr. WatkinsonThe police estimate that 20,000 cars were brought to this match, and they naturally caused congestion over a wide area. There are no trunk roads in the immediate neighbourhood, and I am not responsible for the improvement of other roads. I have made a grant of £155,000 towards the cost of reconstructing the London Road Bridge at Twickenham, and the Middlesex County Council expect to carry it out by the end of 1960.
Local highway authorities have made applications to me for grants in the normal way towards other improvement schemes in this area, but these are designed to cater for the ordinary traffic of the district, and I could not consider giving special priority to any proposals purely for the sake of isolated events of this kind.