Berwick Lib Dem speaks out about A1 dualling in House of Lords

2.45.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 24th Oct 2008

The need to improve the A1 between Morpeth and the Scottish Border by upgrading it to dual carriageway along its full length has been raised in the House of Lords by local Councillor Diana Beith. Speaking in the Roads debate on Wednesday 19 October, Cllr Beith, who sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Maddock, spoke about the need to reclassify the A1 north of Newcastle as a route of strategic national importance. She said

"In 2005, the classification of the road was downgraded from of strategic national importance to of regional importance. That meant that the costs of any upgrade would have to come from the regional budget. That budget is not really large enough to cover such a large project and other regional needs. At the time of the change-and I have never got to the bottom of this-there was confusion about who was responsible for the money for dualling the A1, and everybody passed the buck. The result was that schemes that had been worked up in those two areas were dropped. The sum of £4.26 million had been spent on preparatory work on the Morpeth to Felton stretch and £1.23 million had been spent on the Adderstone to Belford section, and that scheme was virtually ready to go. The planning and everything had been done. Unfortunately, a head-on collision between a lorry and a car on the dangerous single carriageway at Adderstone recently resulted in the death of a local man.

"The downgrading of the classification of this road is astonishing when it is compared with other similar links. The economic divide between the north-east of England and the south of England continues to widen. There is a large gap between incomes in the north-east and Scotland. Income per person north of the border was 95 per cent of the national average in 2006. In the north-east, it was only 81 per cent. Berwick borough has almost the lowest average wage in England. People and politicians across the area believe that it is now imperative that the basic infrastructure is put into place to try to address this divide.

"The weakness of our infrastructure is stark. This is particularly true of motorway projects that are among the EU's motorway transport policy priorities. Some of the projects are considered essential for economic development. These include Larne to Belfast in Northern Ireland through to Dublin and Cork in Eire; La Coruña in northern Spain to Porto in Portugal, on to Lisbon and through to Seville in Spain; Hamburg in Germany through to Copenhagen in Denmark and on to Malmö in Sweden; and the port of Felixstowe on the east coast of England through to Stranraer in Scotland.

"We have good east and west rail routes to Scotland but only one good road route-the west coast-despite the fact that more freight still goes by road in the UK than by rail. In the north-east of England, we have two poor roads: the A1, which I have described, and the A697, the single carriageway that goes through many small Northumberland villages and takes many of the freight vehicles because, quite frankly, the A1 is so bad and they make a choice about which will be the slowest road. We in Northumberland are in no doubt that, for the economic development of the north-east of England, it is imperative that we have infrastructure of a high standard linking the city regions of Leeds, the Tees valley, Tyne and Wear and Edinburgh.

"I understand that proposals for regional funding allocations are about to be considered, and the status of the Al should be revisited as part of this process. There is huge support from businesses and everyone in the north-east for the A1 to be considered a route of strategic national importance throughout its length. Significant investment is needed to bring it up to a good standard. I urge the Minister to look urgently into this matter. It would be even better if he drove up this section of the A1 on a Friday at teatime so that he could see for himself just how poor this important main route is. Foreign tourists cannot believe that this is a main road. Lastly, I urge him to urge the Treasury to make this part of the investment plans that aim to address the present financial crisis."

Lord Walton of Detchant also added his views on the A1, saying

"I have raised this issue on many occasions in the past few years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has said, two major schemes came very close to fruition. One was a scheme to tackle the dangerous Mousen bends, the part of the A1 that winds narrowly through part of north Northumberland for about four miles and which locals call the little north lane. It is a dangerous hazard and, as the noble Baroness said, there was an appalling crash recently that closed the road for many hours. A local man was killed, other members of his family in the car were seriously injured and the driver of the foreign lorry involved has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving.

"There was full local consultation in 2004. All local people had the opportunity to comment on that scheme, just as they had on the plan for dualling the road between Morpeth and Felton. Again, a local plan was agreed at great expense and a new route was chosen. We were assured by the Government of the time that the start date for the Mousen bends scheme would be 2009, and the start date for dualling the road between Morpeth and Felton would undoubtedly be 2010. In 2005, for reasons that were very obscure and based on inaccurate statistics that suggested that the traffic did not justify this dualling-the evidence was in no way convincing, certainly not to the locals who see the lines of lorries and heavy vehicles that often hold up the traffic and which people often try desperately to pass at great risk, as well as the farm tractors, because it is a very busy area for farming, which sometimes result in a three or four-mile queue of traffic behind them before people can get past-the trunk road between London and Edinburgh road was downgraded from a route of national importance. As the noble Baroness said, we have now been told that the dangerous Mousen bends will not be dualled until 2019. This is disgraceful.

"As the noble Baroness also said, the local campaign now involves not only local authorities in Northumberland, such as Northumberland County Council and Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council, but the Scottish Parliament, which has become part of the joint campaign covering not only Northumberland but the south of Scotland. It is absolutely crucial that the Government seriously reappraise the matter and adopt a new approach. This road should be regarded again as a road of strategic national importance and these schemes should at the very least be re-established for an early start because the agreement is there and the plans are there, and it is disgraceful that the plans and schemes have been postponed. I very much hope that the Minister will give us some assurance.

"Just a few weeks ago, there was a Question in this House about the future of Berwick-upon-Tweed and whether it should remain part of England or become part of Scotland. I asked about the importance of this English town and dualling the road. The Minister who replied said that the dualling should be given high priority, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will be able to reassure us."

Sir Alan Beith, Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick upon Tweed, has also called on the Government to press ahead with the dualling of the Adderstone section of the A1. He said

"As the Government is looking for construction projects in which to invest as a means of alleviating the current economic downturn, the dualling of the A1 at Adderstone, where so much of the preparation has already been carried out, should be a priority."