‘M40 noise blights lives’

M40 Chilterns Environmental Group say the motorway carries more than twice the number of vehicles it was designed to carry, noise levels are too high and air quality will go above pollution limits this year.

The MPs want a Commons debate on the subject, but have not been lucky in the ballot and are having to rely on asking constant questions.

Aylesbury MP David Lidington said businesses and motorists had benefited from the M40, but nearby communities, such as his constituents in Stokenchurch, had paid the price.

Wycombe MP Paul Goodman said: "Residents in Lane End tell me that their lives are blighted by excessive noise."

Group chairman Ken Edwards, from Lane End, said Highways Agency engineers knew what was needed. The question was how high a priority they would give the M40 through Buckinghamshire and whether the money would come from Government.

The Highways Agency, which is responsible for motorways, is looking at noise problems along the M40, including at Stokenchurch, Ibstone, Loudwater, Lane End, High Wycombe, Cadmore End and Lewknor. There will be a report next March, consultations on solutions and a bid for money.

Mr Edwards said this was good as far as it went. His group was set up in July last year when the agency first asked people how accidents, speeding, congestion, noise and delays should be tackled.

Mr Edwards said the agency now accepted noise was a problem so it was a question of its priorities. Top priority was getting rid of the noisy concrete stretches on motorways.

The M40 between Beaconsfield and Handy Cross was not considered top priority because it had been given a quiet surface. But Mr Edwards said the road was noisy along the Loudwater viaduct and up the hill towards Handy Cross. From Handy Cross onwards, some single lanes had been given a quiet surface during maintenance repairs, but the road remained noisy.

Mr Edwards said priority should be given to the M40 because it ran through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, but he feared it would not get done until at least 2011. The group wants the Government to adopt EU directives; setting stringent noise targets and insisting cars are fitted with quiet tyres.

The Highways Agency said it was investigating the mentioned M40 sites from its Route Management Strategy and that this would be completed by March 2006.

A spokesman said: "Should the outcomes show the possibility for further work, we would then look to bid for funding. In the production of the strategy we had consulted widely, this included stakeholders and the general public. The comments and proposals about what to investigate were all detailed in the strategy."