Dualling of the A21

Since 2020, National Highways has been delivering a £20 million safety package on the A21, reflecting persistent structural risks on this stretch of road. Those measures are welcome and necessary, but they also demonstrate that we are repeatedly treating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying cause. Recent interventions, including the ongoing installation of traffic lights at the A21-A265 junction in Hurst Green, have highlighted the daily impact of this route on local communities. They have brought into sharp focus not only the sheer volume of traffic on the A21 but the severe consequences when that traffic is brought to a standstill.

Residents were deeply concerned about the manner in which they were consulted on that installation, which was not sufficient, given that this is a major change for residents who will experience it on a daily basis. Some of them were not even written to until the week before, and there was not a serious attempt to engage with them on the final plans. There had been earlier efforts to engage more broadly on what might be done, but we know that our constituents are busy and have other things going on in their lives, so they tend to engage most profoundly when presented with the final plans setting out, “This is what we are minded to do.” In this case, the contractors were already in place and the plans were already decided and paid for, which of course raises a lot of scepticism about National Highways’ ability to have responded to residents’ concerns.

The A21 is acutely vulnerable to disruption, as we are seeing in Hurst Green during the construction period. Collisions, flooding and landslip events regularly lead to full or partial closures. When that happens, there are no suitable alternative routes. Traffic diverts on to narrow country lanes, damaging rural roads, delaying emergency services and cutting off villages for hours at a time. I have direct experience of that. When there has been some sort of incident ahead when driving down the A21 to my constituency, I have naively listened to the advice given by Google Maps to divert off the A21, along with the many other people who are encouraged to do the same; I have been stuck for 30 minutes because that has happened at both ends of the road, and it has taken the good grace of residents living on that road to come out and manage the traffic to unblock the stoppage. As climate-related events become more frequent, this lack of resilience represents a growing risk, not just to road users but to the wider local economy. Businesses cannot plan around a route that fails unpredictably, and workers cannot rely on it for consistent access to employment.

Nowhere are the consequences of poor connectivity more evident than in Bexhill and Hastings. Bexhill contains significant pockets of deprivation, with lower than average wages and productivity—I know the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) will raise similar issues experienced in her constituency. Across the Bexhill–Hastings corridor, productivity levels remain around 20% below the south-east average. Importantly, deprivation in this area is not due to a lack of ambition or potential. Bexhill and Hastings have benefited from regeneration initiatives and local growth programmes, but without a reliable strategic road connection, their impact is fundamentally constrained. Piecemeal local schemes cannot overcome a broken strategic link.

Unreliable journey times limit labour market catchments, reduce business productivity and deter inward investment. Employers struggle to recruit when commute times are unpredictable. Investors hesitate when access to the wider south-east corridor is uncertain. The A21 sits at the centre of that challenge. This is ultimately an issue about opportunity. For many residents in Bexhill, the ability to access work, training or better-paid employment depends on the A21. When that route is unreliable, opportunities narrow and inequalities deepen.

There is clear evidence that strategic upgrades deliver lasting benefits. The dualling of the A21 between Tonbridge and Pembury resulted in major reductions in serious collisions, improved journey reliability and a strong economic return. That outcome is consistent with national evidence about the benefits of dualling high-volume single-carriageway A roads. Further dualling south of Pembury would deliver sustained safety improvements, improve reliability for commuters and businesses, reduce vulnerability to incidents and climate-related disruption, and improve the health and wellbeing of all those living in the villages directly placed along the A21.

If we are serious about tackling deprivation, expanding opportunity and restoring confidence in coastal communities, we must address the structural barriers that hold them back. We have already seen how local strategic road investment can transform opportunity. The Queensway Gateway road transformed access to the A21 from Bexhill and Hastings, reducing severances and improving reliability. Crucially, it made regeneration and employment sites viable by replacing an unreliable approach route with a modern strategic corridor. Investor confidence increased because access was no longer a risk.

The Bexhill-Hastings link road provides even clearer evidence. By delivering a second strategic connection between the two towns and a stronger link to the A21, it removed long-standing capacity constraints. That intervention directly unlocked over 1,000 homes and significant land for employment in north-east Bexhill that could not otherwise have been released. In both cases, public investment in strategic connectivity unlocked substantial private investment and long-term economic gains. The lesson is clear: strategic roads unlock growth and marginal fixes simply ration constraint.

For communities along the A21, this is not simply a transport issue; it is about productivity, opportunity, and fair access to work and services. I urge the Minister to recognise the A21’s role as the principal gateway to some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in the south-east and to move beyond short-term mitigation. Specifically, will he commit to advancing the strategic case for dualling the A21 south of Pembury, including village bypasses? Will he support further design and development work so that the scheme is genuinely ready for delivery? Finally, will he set out how this corridor can be considered within the next road investment strategy?

My residents are clear: they live with the A21 and they bear with the A21, but it is not the version of a road network that is delivering for them. I have explained all the reasons why dualling the A21 will make a profound difference to the opportunities of so many people in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies. Anyone who has lived alongside that road, in the way that residents have to at the moment, will know that the current situation is not sustainable and cannot be the long-term fix or the solution that makes a real difference. I ask the Minister to think carefully, consider my questions and give hope to all those in my constituency who do not want this issue to be off the agenda or the radar, even if we recognise that the dualling is not something that will happen overnight.

The other thing I will raise is the Queensway Gateway Road. It has finally been finished and opened, but we have had much pain in Hastings during the works that have been run by East Sussex county council. It was a shambles from start to finish; it was meant to take a month, and it lasted over a year. We have just found out that there was a £5 million overspend on the roadworks, costing local businesses millions and leaving residents stuck in gridlock for hours when trying to get to work or school.

I am calling for an independent investigation into this issue. Conservative-run East Sussex county council and the contractors it used, such as Balfour Beatty, have serious questions to answer about how they could plan a project so badly that it ran on for a year and overspent by £5 million—taxpayers’ money. I would be grateful if the Minister could look into that as well.

RIS3 will deliver tangible improvements through safer and smoother journeys for road users and through targeted programmes tackling key pinch points on the network. For the A21—as the hon. Member will be aware —one of the main pinch points can be found at the Kippings Cross roundabout, where the dual-carriageway section meets the single-carriageway section. That junction is being considered for improvement as part of one of the new national programmes in RIS3, and I encourage hon. Members to engage with National Highways over the months ahead as this work progresses and the schemes within the programme are prioritised for delivery.

As for dualling the remaining single-carriageway stretches of the A21, there are no plans to do so at the present time. It does not form part of the plans set out in RIS3, and it is not one of the schemes included in the pipeline of schemes for construction in the early 2030s. Dualling the A21 would carry a significant cost, and the delivery of such a scheme would be really challenging, given the local topography and the number of settlements that the route passes through. It would also have significant environmental impacts—I know that there are sites of significant environmental interest in the area, including ancient woodland—and would require, I think, at least three or four bypasses around villages.