Roads Minister confirms strong case for A11 dualling to MPs today

Norwich South MP Simon Wright today made a speech during a parliamentary debate promoting the economic benefits of dualling the A11. The debate was secured by West Suffolk MP Matthew Hancock, and a number of other MPs from Norfolk and Suffolk took part.

Mr Wright said that the county was at a competitive disadvantage because of the inadequacies of Norfolk's transport infrastructure, and that dualling the route would unleash huge economic potential within the County. He urged Ministers to come to a decision as quickly as possible.

In his response to the MPs, the Roads Minister Mike Penning, confirmed comments made last week by the Transport Secretary Philip Hammond that the A11 has a "very, very high BCR" (Benefit-Cost Ratio) which is used by the Department for Transport to assess economic case for road projects.

Speaking afterwards, Simon Wright said: "We were not expecting a firm commitment from this debate, as the spending review is ongoing and the A11 is still being considered. But it was an opportunity for us to make the case before a decision is made. I was very pleased that the Minister responded positively to the points we made and that he confirmed the high value of the proposal to dual the A11."

Simon Wright's speech below:

May I start by congratulating the Honourable Member for West Suffolk for securing this debate on an issue which I know he was campaigning on before he was elected and which he raised in his maiden speech. Indeed, he managed to lobby me on this issue before either of us had even been sworn in as MPs. I also congratulate him on his speech in which he so eloquently highlighted the economic case for completing the dualling of the A11.

It is important to recognise the challenges faced by our local economy in Norfolk by the lack of infrastructure in and leading in to the county. Norfolk's economic position within the East of England and the wider Greater South East is not typical of those regions.

Business birth rates in Norfolk are under 9%, comparing poorly with a rate of over 11% across the East of England. And yet prospects appear to be worsening relative to the wider region, with the number of business births in Norfolk down by 17.5% since 2007, which compares with a drop of just over 5% across the East of England.

In 2004, there were 3690 new businesses; in 2006 it was 3195; and in 2008 it was just 2765.

Norfolk is slipping further behind. The gap is widening.

East Anglia in the past has generated a very high number of start-ups, some of which have gone on to achieve huge success such as Bernard Matthews and his turkeys. It's worrying to see the drop in start-ups in a County that has traditionally relied economically on large numbers of small business operations.

One of the key reasons for this decline is the lack of infrastructure within a sparsely populated county which is putting us at a competitive disadvantage. And yet Norfolk can contribute so much. There is huge untapped economic potential in Norwich and across Norfolk waiting to be unleashed by the completion of dualling this route. My constituency of Norwich South is the end point of the A11, and it's appropriate that originally the start point of this road was the Bank of England, because Norwich businesses will need a fast, direct route to banks with the proceeds that dualling this road will generate.

Norfolk has the potential to be at the cutting edge of green technology, science and research, but this hinges on whether our infrastructure can be improved. Offshore energy, engineering, financial and business services, creative and media industries are amongst those areas where Norfolk can be a world leader, but which to develop need to overcome the shortcomings in our transport system.

Its enormously frustrating that a whole County's development has been held back by a series of delays to a final decision on the upgrading of the A11.

Norfolk's transport infrastructure has been underinvested in for years, decades even. The need to dual the A11 was first raised nearly 40 years ago by Edward Heath in 1971. In 1984, the East Anglian daily newspaper the Eastern Daily Press threw its weight behind the campaign. Dozens of Norfolk MPs over the intervening years have added their weight, and yet here we are in 2010 still waiting.

And its perhaps because of this long term underinvestment that the economic case for the dualling the A11 is particularly compelling. Norwich is the biggest UK city not to be connected to the dual carriageway and motorway network, and making this connection is one of the few low-hanging fruits ripe and easily picked with enormous resulting benefits. For Ministers looking for cost effective ways of delivering economic benefits through infrastructure investment, the A11 must surely be near or at the top of that list.

Norfolk is geographically isolated and sparsely populated which provides challenges for economic development. The poor quality and lack of connectedness of the County's road network make these challenges much harder for businesses to overcome. The other major roads into Norwich and Norfolk from outside the County are single carriageway for significant and extended stretches. The places an even larger strategic value on the A11.

Getting Norwich and Norfolk better connected is a vital step towards overcoming our geographical constraints and the competitive disadvantage that businesses in the region face.

Journey time savings by dualling the final stretch of the A11 are estimated at around 7 minutes during peak times. Lack of capacity on the road regularly leads to delays of up to 20 minutes or more, and during peak holiday seasons it is considerably more. Witness the A11 at the start and end of bank holiday weekends, and you will witness a seemingly neverending convoy of caravans going nowhere - surely a deterant to return holiday visits to the county, and unfairly reinforcing Norfolk's stereotype as a remote peripheral region.

A £600 million benefit to Norfolk's economy is waiting to be realised from the dualling of the A11, providing significant value-for-money at a time when public spending needs careful scrutiny for economic impact.

The Atkins report identified time savings worth £558 million and a further £136 million of wider economic benefits, including agglomeration benefits.

Much of these agglomeration economies will be driven by productivity increases in Norwich. Businesses in my constituency, as well as research institutions in and adjacent to Norwich, are particularly likely to see the positive impacts of increased clustering. The region will see the economic benefits by improving connections between two key centres of growth, Norwich and Cambridge.

Businesses are being deterred from investing in Norfolk because of the inadequacies of the A11 as it is. But tackling the bottlenecks on this route will provide a huge confidence boost to businesses both within Norfolk, and also those from outside looking to generate new investment and new employment opportunities in Norwich and Norfolk.

Norwich is within the UK's top 10 shopping destinations, but even some major retailers have been held back from investing in Norwich because of the threat of hold-ups to deliveries on the A11.

The completion of the dualling of the A11 was identified as the number one priority for Shaping Norfolk's Future, Norfolk's private sector led economic development partnership. Their petition attracted 16,000 signatures and all party political support of the region's MPs. Norfolk's Chamber of Commerce, alongside Shaping Norfolk's Future and more than 100 business figures from Norfolk and Suffolk wrote a joint letter of support for this proposed scheme. The consensus is very strongly in favour of this scheme, and the strength of feeling is very high.

In conclusion, the reason that there is such huge support for this scheme is that the case is so compelling. This scheme will bring major economic benefits to Norwich, Norfolk and beyond, and at a time when capital investment projects need to demonstrate strong justification. I'm confident that the evidence is compelling for this scheme to proceed. I strongly urge Government Ministers to reach a conclusion on this as quickly as possible so Norwich and Norfolk can look forward with optimism and confidence to its future economic development.