UK Parliament / Open data

Levelling-up Missions: East of England

Proceeding contribution from Peter Aldous (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 31 January 2023. It occurred during Debate on Levelling-up Missions: East of England.

We have had a very full debate. I will go through the contributions made by hon. Members and hon. Friends, and I will try to pull one or two things together out of those.

The hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) highlighted the importance of investment in health infrastructure and services. He is right to do so, because it is something that particularly concerns a great many of our constituents, and we must get that right. We have had a lot of discussion about the importance of rail, which I will come to in a minute. Being at the west of the region, he has highlighted the importance of East West Rail and, generally, in the east of England that can be a challenge.

We look so much north-south and at the roads to London; in fact, very often our road network is focused on the roads down to London. The A12 used to be a toll road from Yarmouth, and it was the main road serving that part of the area, and there was also the A10. Actually, those cross-country routes—whether they are the railways or the roads—are so important. In Suffolk or Norfolk, there is the A143, which links to Lowestoft but actually runs from Yarmouth right down on the county border through to Bury St Edmunds and down to Haverhill. That is a tortuous way to go down, so those cross-country routes are absolutely vital.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) emphasised the challenges faced by Jaywick and also highlighted the railways. Like me, his constituency is served by two railway lines, and he highlighted the slow, tortuous journey to Liverpool Street. From my perspective, on the East Suffolk line from Lowestoft to Ipswich the journey time has not improved since 1859. That is another particular challenge that we need to address.

A lot of our strategic investment in the coming years will be in the railways, but the road network is there and we must not forget it. There are pinch points and particular challenges. The A12 through Essex is heavily overused. Quite frankly, its activity justifies M status, but I do not think that will ever come, and we have to address that. Because of a lack of maintenance, a lot of our main roads are turning into little more than country tracks in some respects, which reminds me that there were most regrettable accidents on the B1062, which links Beccles to Bungay, over the new year period. I talked that through with the local community and the county council. The county council engineer is doing great work. He said, “We have analysed what happened and think there is a need for improvement, and you are now in the top 20% of our priority schemes.” I thought, “Great.” I said to him, “How many priority schemes do you have?” And he said, “Oh, 10,000”. That illustrates that investment in the existing network—

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

727 c44WH 

Session

2022-23

Chamber / Committee

Westminster Hall
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