Safety and Littering: A34 and A420 — House of Commons, 2020-11-10
Topic: Transportation
David Mervyn Johnston (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to have secured my first Adjournment debate. As some Members will know already, one of my major transport requests is the reopening of Grove station, which was one of the stations cut in the Beeching cuts. My constituents have wanted it to be reopened for more than 40 years now. It would better connect the people of Grove, where a lot more housing is due to go, it would get people off the roads I am about to talk about, and of course it would improve our environment. I have got my bid in to the Restoring Your Railway fund, and I have everything crossed for hopeful news at some point in the future However, that is not my constituency’s only transport challenge. In fact, we have two issues on two roads, which add up to one big problem for the people in my constituency. What I will talk about is the responsibility partly of Government, partly of Highways England and partly of the councils, both county and district I will begin with the A420. The A420 has two sections, and I make no apology for being most concerned with the section that goes through my constituency, from down near Shrivenham and Watchfield, up through the Coxwells, round Faringdon, across through Littleworth, Buckland and Kingston Bagpuize, and up through Fyfield and Tubney, which I will come back to in a moment The road is known locally—it has been for a couple of decades now—as a "road to hell" or "Hell’s Drive". The fundamental problem is that it is very unsafe. It is supposed to be a local road going through a predominantly rural area, but it is used for commercial traffic between Oxford and Swindon, with a lot of heavy goods vehicles, which I will come back to, and as a shortcut between the M4 and the M40. All that adds up to too much traffic, and too much traffic of the wrong kind—traffic that is too heavy for what was built as a local road To put the safety issues in context, because that traffic adds up to a lot of accidents, we have had 12 fatal accidents in the three years to 2019, compared with five fatal accidents in the three years before that, so the problem has been getting worse. Overall, there have been 1,057 accidents in the past six years, which averages at nearly one accident every other day. The important thing about that statistic is that it is only for accidents that were reported to the police because someone was injured; it does not account for all the other accidents we know happen that simply involve vehicle damage. With those, I think that figure would be a lot higher. Of course, the safety issues are predominantly for the vehicles on the roads, but they are also an issue for cyclists and those on foot, because I stress that this is supposed to be a local road. All the way along the road, people live near it and need to be able to cross it One good example of the problem is when we get to the villages of Fyfield and Tubney, which the A420 goes through, Fyfield on one side and Tubney on the other. In order to do anything other than simply stay in their houses all day every day, people need to be able to cross the road. The numbers may be small, but the problem affects 100% of the community. I hope that this brings home to the House how extraordinary the situation is with the road: because it is so difficult to cross—because of the amount of traffic, the speeding that goes on and the HGVs that go down it all day long, from morning till night—constituents are known to get a bus down the A420 to cross at one of the few crossings, and then get the bus back, because they cannot make a simple journey straight across the road None of our constituents should have to live like that, and we must again make the A420 a local road that is suitable for the people who live in that community. That means a number of things. It means a proper bus service with safe stops along the route, as well as safe pathways for those who are on foot or on their bike. We need traffic light crossings and pedestrian crossings along the route—it is really quite a long route. We need better signage that diverts HGVs, which should not really be on the road anyway, away from it and reduces the speed on it, and importantly, that will have to be enforced Of course, that should be the responsibility of Oxfordshire County Council, but the council says that it does not have the money to make the improvements, even though it recognises that they are needed. I would therefore like the Minister to respond to the question of how we might remedy that situation, because it has gone on for far too long and my constituents should not have to deal with it Let me turn to the A34 which, again, is in two sections. Again, I make no apologies for being most concerned about the section that goes through my constituency, which in this case starts in the south and goes past Chilton, Harwell, Didcot, Steventon, Milton and Drayton as it as it heads north. I know that many Members of this House have some experience of the A34. In the past six years we have had 50 fatal crashes on this road, and 2,593 crashes overall, which is more than one every single day. Again, those figures are only for crashes that involve people being injured; they are not the figures for just damage to cars. On Thursday, I was told that I had secured this Adjournment debate; there was a crash on the A34 on the Tuesday beforehand and on the Friday the day after—and I am just talking about the section that is in Oxfordshire When it comes to the A34, the problem is much better documented. Highways England has recommended a number of safety improvements. As some of those improvements have been made, I ask the Minister when we can expect the other improvements, because my constituents try to avoid this road because of the safety issues. I should say that that question is separate from that of improving connectivity across the region. The safety issues have been going on for some time, but there is a separate question about how to improve connections for people going across the region.