Atherstone MP Craig Tracey: I'm 'delighted' at Chancellor's decision to approve dualling of A5

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has given the green light to an estimated £500 million transport upgrade right through the heart of Atherstone and district's congested roads in a Budget announcement set to transform the local economy.

The Treasury chief's approval of the dualling of the A5 was greeted with "delight" by Atherstone's MP Craig Tracey who has spearheaded a five-year campaign to persuade the Government to improve the network.

The MP told Nubs News today he is waiting for further details on the go-ahead which looks set to see four lanes of carriageway on a 13-mile stretch from the junction 10 M42 island at Dordon through to the junction 1 M69 Hinckley island.

The "new Tarmac" from one end to the other of Mr Tracey's North Warwickshire constituency came in a Tory government promise to level up transport infrastructure in the UK.

Chancellor Sunak, in his first budget less than a month in to the senior cabinet post, pledged £27 billion for roads and motorways, which he described as the biggest ever investment in the "strategic road network" – along with a £2.5 billion pothole fund and enough to fill 50 million potholes.

Mr Tracey was devoted hundreds of hours to winning over Parliament to upgrade the A5 between Grendon and Dordon as well as resolving the issues around the Mancetter island at the gateway to Atherstone town centre.

Two years ago he told Sajid Javid, the then Secretary of State for Transport and Local Communities, delivering proposals for 9,000 new homes to accommodate the Greater Birmingham housing area along a "relatively small stretch" of the A5 transport corridor was a tough ask.

He said at the time: "The challenge is that more than two thirds of the borough is green belt, so we can develop only in limited areas, the majority of which are along the A5 corridor, which, as I have said, is already at tipping point.

"The A5 in this area is not fit for purpose for its current level of use, by both existing residents and large-scale logistics businesses such as Aldi and TNT.

"It is a confusing mixture of single and dual carriageways with a number of traffic islands that are not able to fulfil their function safely.

"For example, the A5 at Dordon merges from a dual to single carriageway on an extremely small traffic island, a further island at Mancetter actually has residential driveways fronting onto it.

"There has been a lack of thought among previous councils when approving commercial developments, in that they did not upgrade the local infrastructure to accommodate for them.

"Without significant improvements, it will clearly not be feasible to deliver the housing."

Last March, Warwickshire County Council looked at financing the A5 Transport Corridor project through the Homes England Housing Infrastructure Fund – a £5.5bn pot to help support housing growth.

The scheme was designed to unlock a series of housing developments via network improvements at Atherstone, Grendon and Dordon with an upgrading of the A5 to dual carriageway between Grendon and Dordon via offline dualling with connection to a new developer led link road between the A5 and B5000.

Last year, the MP told then Roads Minister Jesse Norman: "It is not good enough that eastbound traffic during peak times between Atherstone and Dordon has an average speed of just 20mph in mornings and 30 mph in the evenings on such a critical stretch of road."

It will be good news for Witherley Parish Council's campaigning chairman Brian Conway who has highlighted problems with the rat runs through the villages; the notorious A5 Woodford Lane junction, which has the worst accident record of any intersection between the M42 and Milton Keynes – and the anomaly of A5 traffic having priority over traffic already on the Mancetter island.

Residents in a number of properties that front on to it have to reverse either on or off their drives to gain access to moving lanes of traffic that do not have to give way as they come down the A5.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has also commented on the issue.

In March 2018, he said: "We recognise the significance of the Midlands A5 Expressway in the larger Strategic Road Network . . . as a corridor of strategic and economic significance".

Highways England has undertaken four studies and concluded that there is a strong economic case for an A5 scheme, with a range of credible options for further study.

In a House of Commons debate two years ago retired Bosworth MP David Tredinnick said there was an urgent need to upgrade the A5 along a 28-mile stretch between Dordon, through Grendon and Atherstone, to Crick, near Rugby.

The former MP said: "The A5 is one of our oldest roads. It was commissioned during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, after his successful invasion of Britain in AD 43.

"It is also one of our most strategically important roads. The stretch that we are discussing goes past the geographical centre of England.

"More than ever, it is an essential road because of the circumstances around it, in terms of the growth of proposed housing and business.

"There is a very pressing need for an effective relief road when there are problems on the M1, M6, M42 and surrounding motorways in this golden triangle."

Historically it has been crucial in playing its part in troop movements – none more so than when Henry VII moved down the Watling Street to London claiming the throne of England by defeating Richard II at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Even earlier, in 60 AD, the Mancetter island on the A5 is thought to have been the place where the battle of Watling Street took place when 80,000 warriors loyal to Queen Boudicca were killed in a single day by the Roman 14th Legion .

The road lost its pre-eminence following construction of the M1 between 1959 and 1968, and the building of the M6 from north of junction 18 of the M1, which was finished in May 1972 and opened by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

After that, the A5 lost attention and was no longer the great north-west road that it had been.

Now that 28-mile stretch between Dordon and Crick, with Atherstone pivotal to its progress, has become significant again as there are proposals for a total of 60,000 new homes up to 2031.

As Mr Tredinnick concluded: "I cannot see how that can take place without investment in the A5."

Economic footnote: Atherstone and district – as the administrative base of North Warwickshire – has a proud record of creating jobs. The borough provides 1.22 jobs for every working age person. Some 18,386 people from across the West Midlands commute into North Warwickshire every single day to work.