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Strategic Routes (South-West)

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue tonight. I notice that the last time I raised the issue of roads in the south-west on the Adjournment it was at 11.15 pm, so tonight’s timing is slightly better. Although the title of my debate on the Order Paper is ““Strategic routes in the South West””, I hope to reduce the scope of that a little, as it would be a very large subject. One might have a debate about the rail system in the west country, which is desperately in need of investment to meet the demands on it, or about the motorway system. I want to concentrate my comments, however, on the A303 in my constituency and the strategic routes between the south coast and Bristol and Bath. I will try desperately to put out of my mind the fact that, because of the Glastonbury festival traffic, it took me four hours to drive from my constituency this morning along the said A303. Indeed, it is not capacity or journey times that I want to concentrate on, but rather safety and the quality of life for people who live in my constituency. The particular stretch of the A303 that most interests me is between Sparkford and Ilchester. It horrifies me to realise that I have been talking at intervals about that stretch of road, which is only 3½ miles long, for the 10 years that I have been in the House and before that as a county councillor. We went through a long process immediately prior to my entering the House in 1997, when the then Government produced plans for safety improvements on that stretch. They were put to local people and went through a public inquiry. The public inquiry satisfied itself that there were no overwhelming environmental problems or problems with local concerns about the plans. That was different from other parts of the A303. There was considerable concern about the implications of schemes to increase capacity over the Blackdowns, and we have a continuing problem with what can be done at Stonehenge. However, there was a general realisation that there could be a significant improvement in the safety of the stretch of road from Sparkford to Ilchester by dualling it, and that that could be done without an excessive take of land and reasonably inexpensively. The scheme got caught in the moratorium on road building as the new Government took office in 1997. We then entered into what I have learned to call the south-west area multi-modal study—the so-called SWARMMS report—which looked at the whole length of the A303, and there it stayed. I have raised the issue at regular intervals since then. When I did so in 1998, the then Minister, the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson), gave me a learned dissertation on Stonehenge and why I should care more about it than about my constituents. I do care about Stonehenge, but I was interested in safety improvements between Sparkford and Podimore. Every time we have raised the issue since 1997 we have seen an ever-receding prospect of action. Why do we need action? It is a stretch of road where the A303 changes from a dual carriageway to a single carriageway and back to a dual carriageway. There is a pinchpoint. It carries a significant amount of traffic. I have said before that the A303 carries more traffic than many motorways, particularly in the summer season, when there is a great deal of holiday traffic, much of which, for some reason, wants to go to Devon and Cornwall. I cannot understand why entirely, but it does, and it goes through Somerset. There is also a lot of locally induced traffic from the Glastonbury festival, the Yeovilton air show and local events of that kind. The other critical factor is the distance of the stretch of road from London and the far south-west. It is at the point when drivers start to get tired and lose their concentration. According to information that I have been given by the Highways Agency, the sad consequence of that is that there have been 18 deaths and 68 serious injuries on that short, 3½ mile stretch. That is significant.