I beg to move,
That this House has considered proposed changes to the A46 at Tewkesbury.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrusb Davies.
I thank the Minister for attending. He will be relieved to know that, unusually, this is not a debate during which I will ask the Government to fund a road scheme—at least, not yet. The main point of my debate is to ask the Minister to reject a business case that has been presented to him by Gloucestershire County Council.
I am told that my constituency, or at least the borough in which it falls, is without doubt the fastest growing in the country in terms of housing. Infrastructure is therefore needed to ensure that we have balanced and sustainable growth. In the southern part of my constituency, the Government are providing about half a billion pounds to fund a solution to the so-called “missing link” problem. That involves implementing a major road scheme along the A417, which will bring an end to the huge daily congestion and to the number of tragic deaths and accidents that, for far too long, have occurred on that stretch of road.
The Government have also agreed the improvements to junction 10 of the M5 in the middle of my constituency, as well as to the A4019, which serves it and goes from there into Cheltenham; that will serve the increased housing planned for the area and the proposed cyber park. That project involves, among other things, upgrading junction 10 from a two-way junction to a four-way junction, an improvement that provides some important context for the points that I wish to make about the A46.
That is happening in the south and middle of my constituency, but what about the north, with the A46 through Ashchurch and into Tewkesbury? I mentioned that my area is the fastest growing in the country, and much of that growth is taking place around junction 9 of the M5, which is served by the A46. Those roads are already very busy, with traffic queues to leave the motorway and often long and slow queues along the A46. A lot of housing lies alongside and close to that road, with much more to come. There are also some major industrial sites along the road and near the junction—companies such as Moog, L3Harris and DHL, to name just three, but there are many more—employing a great many people. In the past few months, a company called Dobbies has opened a garden centre right next to junction 9, and it has already started to build a retail outlet on the same site. It is a great development that will attract thousands of people to the area, but obviously it generates a great many vehicle journeys to and from the area.
I welcome such growth and activity. It is a tribute to local people and businesses that so many industries and people want to work and live in the area, but as I say, infrastructure is needed to support development—infrastructure that includes not only schools, flood prevention schemes, drainage systems and water service schemes, but roads infrastructure.
Some time ago, Tewkesbury Borough Council made an application for a garden town project and that was granted. It will involve the building of a further 10,000 houses in the area, which will of course increase road usage. When I spoke to the council at the time, some five years ago, I made my position clear: I would support the project, but with two provisos. First, because my area is subject to flooding, as the House will remember, no garden town proposals should make flood risk any worse; and secondly, improvements should be made to the already congested A46.
Since then, I have waited for the improvements to the A46 to be proposed. Covid slowed everything down, but work proceeded at the county council level. Tewkesbury Borough Council obtained about £3 million from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and passed that money on to the county to develop a scheme for improving the A46. However, although the county then proceeded to spend not only that £3 million but a further £6 million on developing the proposals, a very poor business case has been presented to the Government. My main reason for securing this debate is to ask the Government to reject that business case and to explain why.
The business case contained four options—the blue option, the orange option, the pink option and, rather troublingly, the grey option or grey route. The first three options—blue, orange and pink—are basically bypass options. The business case contains no proposal to increase the capacity of the A46 itself. Furthermore, the grey option unbelievably proposes reducing junction 9 to a two-way junction. Even with the current level of traffic, that is ridiculous and completely unnecessary; with the future extra traffic that I have discussed, it is beyond belief. Yet, for some reason, that seems to be the favoured option. I wish to explore why.
As I said, a garden centre has been built right next to the junction, and an outlet centre is to be built on the site next to it. If we add the extra businesses that are expanding on that route and the proposed 10,000-plus extra houses, the proposal to half-close the junction really is extraordinary. In addition to half-closing the junction, the proposal suggests a link road to a further half-junction just south of junction 9. The link road would be built on land that floods badly; it would run alongside two schools, including a special school, that have almost 2,000 pupils; and pylons would have to be moved. All that, and for what purpose?
The theory behind all the options is that some traffic comes from the Stratford area along the A46 to join the M5 at junction 9 and then goes south, and building a bypass would relieve the A46 of some of that traffic. The evidence for that theory has not yet been provided to me, despite all my requests over a couple of years. To accommodate the bypass, farmland would have to be built over, villages would be blighted and a railway line would need to be crossed. It is necessary to produce the evidence that such a bypass is needed, before I could support such a scheme.
I am not against the bypass in principle, if the evidence is there to support it, but even in those circumstances there is no need to half-close junction 9. There is a £220 million scheme turning junction 10 from two-way to four-way just a few miles south of junction 9. What is the logic in doing the opposite at junction 9?
Furthermore, a bypass would not solve the problems being created by local traffic—the point that those who are proposing the scheme appear to be missing. Even if drivers wanted to access such a bypass, they would have to use the already inadequate roads to do so. As I said, local traffic already queues to get in and out of Tewkesbury; that situation will worsen significantly, for the reasons I have given. That is why a proposal to increase the capacity of the A46 itself is needed, but despite having spent £9 million on the proposals, that option is not being considered.
Who exactly are proposing this scheme? I am told that the county council is responsible for making the proposals to Government, but is that the entire story? I have seen evidence that National Highways is very much in favour of promoting the grey option. Extraordinarily, the leader of the county council, Councillor Mark Hawthorne, has told me that he does not support the inclusion of the grey route in the considerations—he gave me permission to say that publicly. Will the Minister confirm that, at this stage, National Highways is not involved at all in designing the proposals and has no interest in promoting one route above another?
Last year, the county council proposed putting the four options out to a non-statutory consultation. It withdrew the proposal to consult on that basis, presumably after protests from me. Let me restate that there was no option of increasing the capacity of the A46 in the proposed consultation. It is important to make that point, because a number of people and parish councils were understandably disappointed that the consultation did not go ahead; they thought it would be a better consultation than it was. I was surprised to find out a few weeks ago that the county council intended to put the same options forward in another non-statutory consultation in June. That prompted me to secure today’s debate. Perhaps because the debate is taking place, that plan has—for now—been halted.
Let me clearly state my position: there must be a scheme to increase the capacity of the A46 as it goes through Ashchurch to Tewkesbury, to deal with the local traffic. In addition—not instead of, but in addition—a bypass could be considered, provided that there is evidence that the traffic indeed comes from the north-east of Tewkesbury and that it could not be redirected along the M42. The grey route—the proposal to half-close junction 9—should be taken off the table completely. To ensure that a better business case is produced, the existing business case, which is with the Government, should be rejected.
The county council is reluctant to withdraw the business case because it has spent so much money to get to this point, but that business case is deeply flawed and there is no point throwing even away more taxpayers’ money in pursuit of it. If the county will not withdraw the business case, I ask the Government to reject it and to instruct the county council to go back to the drawing board to develop proposals to increase the capacity of the A46. I would be the first to accept that increasing the capacity of the A46 would not be without its challenges, but far too little consideration has been given to the possibilities and the potential to upgrade that road.
I shall end where I started: in areas of development, particularly those with high growth, infrastructure must be in place alongside the development—not years later, but as areas are developed. We need improvements to the A46 at Tewkesbury and Ashchurch, but those improvements need to be made to that road. We need more evidence before we commit ourselves to a bypass, and we must reject any thoughts of half-closing junction 9.
News of this proposal will come as a great surprise to many people living in the area, and they will be greatly worried by it, so let us act now to remove those fears. I can only support that growth, including the garden town, if the right infrastructure is in place. That has been my consistent line all along. I ask the Minister to reject the business plan and ask the county council to take a fresh look at a scheme for the area. Such a scheme will need to be in place to accommodate growth of the kind that the Government themselves wish to see.