TIVERTON MP Neil Parish has welcomed the announcement that the Government is investing £2 billion to transform the A303/A30/A358 route into a new strategic corridor to the South West.

The south west of England will benefit from 7 new schemes worth around £2 billion, creating an estimated 1,300 construction jobs.

The announcement came as part of an ambitious £15 billion plan to triple levels of spending by the end of the decade to increase the capacity and condition of England’s roads.

As part of these major improvements a new 1.8 mile dual-carriageway tunnel on the A303 under Stonehenge which will unite the landscape and environment around Stonehenge and will also unlock the key pinch-point that has prevented the transformation of the A303 in the past.

The 3 miles of single carriageway on the A303 is to be dualled between Sparkford and Ilchester and the A358 Taunton to Southfields is being upgraded to create a dual carriageway link from the M5 at Taunton to the A303.

The last single carriageway gap on the A30 into Cornwall will be dualled so that an ‘expressway’ standard road will run all the way from Exeter to Camborne - together with planned work near Bodmin, this extends the dual carriageway section of the A30 by 40 miles, stopping only 15 miles from Land’s End: this will transform the way that Cornwall is connected to the rest of the country. 

This is the biggest increase of connection for the region since the opening of the M5, meaning easier journeys and more opportunities for growth.

Mr Parish, who is also Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Transport Minister, said: “I welcome the Government’s £2 billion investment into the A303 to give the South West the second strategic corridor that businesses and road users have been crying out for.

"I am also pleased that the bottleneck of the A303/A30 section between Southfields and Honiton is receiving funding to improve safety and journey quality for road users and is being transformed into an Expressway into the Westcountry.

“Naturally I would have liked to have seen the A30 to Honiton duelled and I will continue to make representations to the Department for Transport for long-term investment in this section of the road.

"However, this announcement is a huge boost to business and road users in the South West and will be a key part in securing transport resilience in the Peninsula.”