Yesterday when the trains were fully booked and many internal flights were cancelled, to cap it all the authorities closed two lanes and then the whole southbound M40 for the whole day.
As someone trying to get to the Midlands and back that day I experienced the chaos for myself, as thousands of cars were routed through the narrow roads of Banbury and headed south on roads suitable for light local traffic only, leading to very long delays and annoyance to people living near the roads.
??I understand the authorities had to allow access for lifting gear to put a lorry back on its wheels and get if off two lanes of carriageway, but surely it cannot take from very early morning until evening to do that?
??I was part of a Bill Committee which charged the authorities with the simple but important task of re-opening blocked carriageways as quickly as possible. It did not work well yesterday. We need the Highways Agency and the other authorities to have a much greater sense of urgency, with lifting gear on standby contracts to remove heavy debris or vehicles as quickly as possible.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.
2 Comments
If it was a private toll road do you think it would be cleared quicker? You bet it would. Create incentives and congestion will decrease. Remove government meddling and congestion would disappear.
Simillar over here in the East Midlands.
Central Trains ran no service on Christmas Eve at all and its looking pretty much the same for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!