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Road Schemes

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention and her clarification of the Government’s promises. Obviously, I wish to see them firmed up and delivered. Clearly, the effects of there not being development can sometimes be negative. I recall going to the Government office for the north-west in the company of the then deputy chief executive of Blackpool Pleasure Beach Ltd to discuss the case for better road links. As the Minister will be aware, one of the few negative things to have happened in Southport recently is that Blackpool Pleasure Beach Ltd has withdrawn from Southport. Obviously, one element of that decision was that, because of the transport issues, the company could not see the increasing flow that its investment had led it to expect. It is probably wrong in that suspicion, but that is how it has perceived the situation. We seem to be on the cusp of some interesting developments. The chief executive of the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust wrote very recently to the hon. Member for West Lancashire and me, suggesting that the problem needs to be addressed. We have been addressing it for some time, but none the less his intervention is helpful. He is suggesting that the hospital trust will not sit back any longer and simply expect transport arrangements to take place, but consciously wants to work with others to try to accommodate such arrangements. That attitude reflected that of the previous chief executive, who had a particular interest in transport. Ultimately, the economic and health cases stack up, and the issues connected with the health service are increasingly to do with access. We are between a rock and a hard place. What happens to pan-regional schemes that are not genuinely pan-regional but cost above the limit allowed for local schemes? Frankly, not a lot of tarmac can be bought with the money that local schemes are allowed to spend. The Ormskirk bypass will probably exceed the limit, however it is done and however costs are pared down. I do not think that my suggestions are unique. The Minister might find himself in an Adjournment debate soon where an hon. Member from another part of the country makes an analogous claim, although the hon. Member for West Lancashire and I like to think that our case is particularly robust and well supported by the evidence provided. However, the predicament is common to many good schemes. Many schemes that the Minister will have to deal with will involve an appreciable amount of local opposition, but there is zilch opposition to this scheme. Everybody in the area wants it, but the problem is simply how to acquire the funding under a regime in which we fall between two stools. That is the question that I want to put to the Minister.