Valuable lunch at the House of Commons

Thanks to the help of Theresa May, MP for Maidenhead, TVEP was able to host a lunch at the House of Commons last week to update Thames Valley MPs and various branches of government on our case for urgently-needed improvements to the M4 and an extension of the Heathrow Express from its present termination point at the airport so it runs through to Slough.

This will provide the badly needed direct rail link from Reading, Maidenhead and Slough to Heathrow, making it easier for both travellers and workers to get to the airport, and, of course, reducing traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.

Our members are spending well over £15 million pounds a year in taxi fares to get to Heathrow. Someone who flew over from America for a meeting with me in Windsor the other day was charged £65 for the short journey - the standard fare; because the airport is only serviced by London cabs.

All the local authorities were represented at the lunch, as well as SEEDA, the regional development agency, and business members of our board. It was good that the Thames Valley was able to speak with one voice, and impress upon the minister of transport the urgency of dealing with the Thames Valley’s transport infrastructure.

After all the Eddington report recommended that priority needs to be given to revitalising transport in the prosperous areas of Britain, and the government has accepted these recommendations, but so far has not moved forward. Prior to the lunch I presented the case for action, pointing out that the downturn in the national economy in recent month’s means that only two regions of Britain are now contributing to growth: everywhere else is slipping backwards.

Our members report that their employees are frustrated beyond belief by the increasing amount of time it takes them to get to and from work, and two of the companies represented at the lunch said that if things are not fixed up, they may move elsewhere.

This would be a terrible loss after all the progress the Thames Valley has made in recent years.

For more information please visit www.thamesvalley.co.uk/infrastructure. There you will also find a PDF which sets out our case for Western rail access to Heathrow and improvements to the M4. Please tell people about this.

The next few weeks will be taken up with the consultation on the proposed third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow. I will keep you posted on this. We are determined that the transport infrastructure improvements we are currently demanding must be put in place before any further expansion takes place.