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Strategic Routes (South-West)

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know the details of the situation that he describes in Dorset, but I am well aware of the case for establishing the A303 as the second strategic route—as I am told I must call it. Sometimes I am told that I must call it policy TR3 of the regional spatial strategy. All those acronyms denote the fact that it is a very important road and something needs to be done. Apparently, that stretch of road will not be done before 2016 at the earliest. The implication is that if the problems of Stonehenge—which I understand is a difficult conundrum, given that a world heritage site is right next to a trunk road—cannot be satisfactorily resolved, nothing will be done along the entire length of the A303. We have proposals for a single scheme, which should not be included in the whole scheme for the length of the A303 but judged on its merits. Those merits suggest, in safety terms and for the sake of saving lives, that it is justified. It concerns me greatly that it will be held up by circumstances beyond the control of anyone who is making the case for it. Those circumstances include the Stonehenge issues and the problem of investing in the A358 as the other leg that brings the traffic from the A303 back to the M5. I ask the Minister whether we can look again at the safety record of that short stretch of road and how we can improve it. We cannot reasonably and responsibly wait until 2016 for something to be done. The other outstanding issue on the A303 is the noise-reduction surface, which we were faithfully promised by the Highways Agency would be in place four years ago. For the sake of their quality of life, people who live in close proximity to a road that for all intents and purposes is carrying the traffic of a motorway, in places such as Blackford, Holton, Maperton and Compton Pauncefoot, have been desperately waiting for a change in the surface. They are sadly disappointed that it has not been done yet. I thought that the subject of the second strategic route was opaque, but BB2SC—as I am told I must call the other route—is even more obscure. BB2SC does not yet exist but will be the road that will connect the south coast ports of Poole and Southampton with Bristol and Bath and, therefore, the motorway network to the north. The difficulty at the moment is that we have not identified that key strategic route. The consequence of that is that heavy goods vehicles leaving those ports—and we are told that both ports will be expanded—take totally unsuitable routes north. They choose different routes, one of which is the A357 through Dorset into the Blackmore vale and, in my constituency, through villages such as Henstridge and Templecombe. I cannot imagine villages that would be less suitable for heavy goods vehicles, given the width of the carriageway, the fact that buildings are very close to the road on each side, and the sharp bends. They are totally unsuitable for lorries of any size. In addition, Templecombe has a low railway bridge and, every month or so, a lorry gets stuck under it. I was in Templecombe only three or four weeks ago and a lorry got stuck. It got squashed under the bridge about 20 minutes after Abbas and Templecombe primary school had finished its day. Had that happened 20 minutes earlier, the pavement under the bridge would have been full of primary-age children. That is unsatisfactory, dangerous, and could be completely avoided if we had a proper strategic route, with all the necessary signage, to take lorries away. The road is supposed be an A route, but it is incapable of taking that sort of traffic.