Harlow MP Robert Halfon welcomes completion of college crossing following lengthy campaign 

Published on  4 December 2011

HARLOW MP Robert Halfon has welcomed the completion of work on a new crossing for Harlow College some 18 months after he started a campaign for the safety work. 

During his efforts to get the improvements carried out Mr Halfon met several times with Essex County Council highways and transportation cabinet member Tracey Chapman and her predecessor Norman Hume and several Essex highways officers. 

He also wrote to the council over the issue and worked with Harlow College staff to get the issue to the top of the agenda. 

He also managed to get the issue debated by Harlow Council which supported Mr Halfon's campaign. 

The crossing, on Velizy Avenue, now makes it safer for students to cross the busy road as they walk into and back from the town centre. 

Mr Halfon campaigned for the crossing after members of the Students' Union at the college collected signatures on a petition calling for action to improve safety for pedestrians crossing the dual carriageway. 

Mr Halfon said: "I am delighted that work on the crossing is finally completed and that students now have a safer journey walking to and from the college.

"Velizy Avenue is a busy road at all times of the day and so the crossing will be welcomed by all the students who have to cross Velizy Avenue." 

Harlow College principal Colin Hindmarch said: "We have campaigned with Robert Halfon for over a year to get these improvements and we are delighted that this has now happened.

"The safety of college students is our top priority - and the new crossing at Velizy Avenue will help."

Essex County Council highways and transportation cabinet member Tracey Chapman said: "We have been working with Robert Halfon on this project for some time, that's why I'm delighted to see these road improvements happen.

"I know from meeting with Robert Halfon about this several times that the Velizy Avenue crossing is hugely important to Harlow town centre, and to Harlow College students especially."

Harlow MP Robert Halfon seeks assurances over additional pothole cash 

Published on 24 March 2011

HARLOW MP Robert Halfon is calling for assurances that Harlow and the surrounding villages get a fair chunk of the £5.3m being given to Essex County Council to pay for pothole repairs across the county.

An announcement in yesterday's Budget revealed that the Government has doubled the amount of additional funding allocated to the highways authorities in England following the damage caused to roads during the severe winter weather. 

Essex County Council has been allocated £5.3m of the £200m in additional funding which has been made possible, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has said, because of Department of Transport budget savings for 2010-11. 

Mr Halfon said: "I have already been in contact with Norman Hume (highways and transportation cabinet member at Essex County Council) to stress the importance that Harlow gets its fair share of the additional Government money." 

He added: "All motorists will be well aware of stretches of road in and around Harlow where potholes remain unrepaired following the bad weather we had last December. 

"I welcome the news that this additional funding has been made available and it is vital that the much-needed repairs to our roads are carried out as soon as possible."

Harlow MP Robert Halfon renews call for a new M11 junction to serve Harlow 

Published on 12 March 2011

Harlow MP Robert Halfon has renewed his call for a new M11 junction to serve Harlow 

At transport questions in the House of Commons on Thursday, Mr Halfon questioned Transport Secretary Philip Hammond over the likelihood of an additional junction being given the go-ahead. 

Mr Halfon asked: "What criteria he (Mr Hammond) proposes to use to determine his Department’s spending on local authority major transport schemes." 

He added: "Harlow Council and Essex County Council are highly supportive of a new M11 junction near Harlow, and local housing development could help to pay for it. 

"Will the Secretary of State look at plans for the new junction, given that the cost to the taxpayer could be minimal?" 

Mr Hammond said: "We will announce in due course the criteria for allocating the remaining funds to projects in the development pool.

"It is likely to be done on the basis of an appraisal of value for money, the proportion of non-Department for Transport funding, deliverability, strategic importance, and a consideration of the balance between modes and regions. 

"It remains my objective to develop a system of capital funding allocation to sub-national areas so that in future spending review periods, priorities can be determined locally." 

Mr Halfon has previously raised the issue in the House of Commons. 

He said: "Harlow desperately needs an extra junction because the town has just one motorway entrance; Basildon has four. The recent roadworks have not solved the problem and congestion causes a huge cost to the local economy. 

"An extra junction (7A) would massively boost jobs in Harlow and the cost would be very modest when compared to other schemes." 

Mr Halfon has been a long-time campaigner for a second Harlow junction having first campaigned for the work in 2007.

For more about the campaign, visit his Fed Up With Harlow Traffic website at http://www.fedupwithharlowtraffic.org

Harlow MP Robert Halfon welcomes move to end overcrowding on trains serving Harlow and Roydon stations 

Published on 9 March 2011

AN announcement by National Express East Anglia that it will be increasing the number of seats on its services serving Harlow has been welcomed by MP Robert Halfon. 

National Express East Anglia has said that in December it will be bringing in extra capacity (seats) on a number of West Anglia services using the trains which become available after the new trains are introduced on the Stansted Express and some Cambridge services. 

Mr Halfon raised the question of overcrowding on trains which serve Harlow in a parliamentary debate last December when he said that passengers had suffered a 30 per cent increase in train overcrowding in recent years. 

Welcoming the announcement, Mr Halfon said: "This is great news for Harlow commuters and also for business in Harlow. Commuters who use our local stations have been having to put up with overcrowding for far too long and it is a major boost that National Express East Anglia is proposing these improvements which cannot be introduced soon enough for our long-suffering commuters." 

National Express East Anglia is proposing timetable changes which will give significant benefits for Cambridge passengers, rather than just adding capacity to the existing timetable, which would then almost certainly be in place for another three years, the company says. 

The proposal is to either add carriages to some trains in the existing timetable or - and the option preferred by National Express East Anglia - to change the timetable more significantly to achieve even more seats and substantial additional benefits such as faster Cambridge to London trains, plus more services to Stratford. 

This would mean more seats and more connections to Stratford from Harlow Mill and Roydon stations and more peak trains, more seats and more Stratford connections from Harlow Town Station.

Harlow MP Robert Halfon backs campaign group in its call for a long-term moratorium on second Stansted runway 

Published on 12 January 2011

HARLOW MP Robert Halfon is supporting the Stop Stansted Expansion campaign group in its demand for a long-term moratorium on a second runway at Stansted. 

The call follows the Conservative-led Government's pledge to stop an extra runway at Stansted and comes after the news that flights in and out of the west Essex airport have hit a ten-year low. 

Mr Halfon said: "It was great news for the community when the second runway proposals were scrapped but now it is vital that a firm guarantee is given that these plans will not be allowed to resurface for many decades to come." 

He added: "The community around the airport is still getting itself back together now that the runway proposals have been dropped but there are many people, including those who may be considering purchasing property in the area, who want some reassurance that they will not have to worry about the prospect of airport expansion quite literally on their doorstep." 

Figures published by Stop Stansted Expansion this week show that last year the airport handled 143,335 commercial flights compared to 146,500 in 2000. 

The number of passengers handled also continued to decline dropping 7 per cent last year to 18.6 million passengers compared to 20.0 million passengers in 2009. 

At its peak in 2006-07 just over 24 million passengers passed through the airport

Mr Halfon said: "While airlines faced issues such as the Icelandic volcano cloud in April and difficult weather conditions at the beginning and end of last year these figures confirm what we have been saying for some time - that there is no longer the demand on the airport which would warrant a second runway making Stansted bigger than Heathrow."