Historic Towns (Bypasses)

HC Deb 19 January 1983 vol 35 c158W

39. Mr. Mudd

asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on progress towards the bypassing of historic towns.

Mr. Chalker

Some 135, or over half, of the 230 historic towns on trunk roads which could benefit from bypasses have been, or are in the process of being, bypassed and schemes are planned for almost all the remainder. In our recent review of the trunk road programme—"Roads: England 1982"—we added a number of schemes aimed particularly at removing through traffic from towns and villages, including historic towns.

In successive transport supplementary grant settlements my right hon. Friend and his predecessor have enabled county councils to start over 100 bypasses of local authority roads, of which about 40 will provide relief to historic towns.