HC Deb 05 March 1976 vol 906 cc779-80W
Mr. Geraint Howells

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how much agricultural land his Department has utilised for highway purposes every year over the last 10-year period; and what was the cost per mile of motorway and trunk road construction.

(2) what amount of land is utilised per mile for motorway and trunk road con- struction; what percentage of this land is utilised for purely highway purposes; and what proportion is taken up in verges traffic splays, roundabouts and for other uses.

Mr. Marks

The land taken in each case varies considerably according to the type of road and the nature of the terrain through which it passes. A typical rural dual three-lane motorway takes about 20 acres per mile, of which about 13 are occupied by the actual carriageways, including hard shoulders; and an all-purpose trunk road about nine acres of which carriageways occupy about six acres. On this basis, over the last 10 years, approximately 19,500 acres of land in rural areas, not all of it agricultural land, have been taken for motorway and trunk road building.

Average costs of motorways, available only from 1969 onwards are:

Year Average costs (£m)* Per Mile
1969 1.0971
1970 1.3382
1971 1.1981
1972 0.9917
1973 1.0043
1974 1.9893
1975 2.2972

It is not possible to produce a meaningful figure for the many different types of non-motorway construction.

* These figures are not at constant prices. For each year the price base is the mid-point of that year.