HC Deb 05 March 2002 vol 381 cc177-8W
Mr. Clifton-Brown

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in relation to the New En Route Centre at Swanwick(a) what was the final commissioned cost, (b) how many extra air traffic control officers are employed and (c) what will be the estimated increased capacity at the new centre in each of the next five years; and by what means this will be achieved. [39761]

Mr. Jamieson

The final commissioned cost of the New En Route Centre at Swanwick was £623 million. Approximately 80 extra air traffic controllers are employed there. Capacity increases at the new centre are planned to match peak demand over each of the next five years. This would be achieved by applying traditional air traffic control workload splitting (sectorisation) and traffic flow simplification (systemisation) improvements.

Some 1,900 miles of non-core trunk roads (about 30 per cent.) are in the process of being transferred to local authorities. The roads for which resource have been transferred to local authorities by means of the Special Grants Report and de-trunked as part of this programme are shown in the table.