Jack Abbott

Absolutely. But to make the same amateurish demands time and again, without doing any of the straightforward things that have been clearly asked of us, is not feasible. That is why, collectively, the local system is heading towards the spending review and is making sure that we are doing the things that have been asked of us at a local level. I hope that the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich will listens to some of this and reflects on it, and that he will join with Transport East, the mayoral combined authority, the chambers of commerce and Members of all parties across the House on this. It does not look as though he is going to do that, which is unfortunate, because we could use all power to the wheel. What I was going on to say, before I was interrupted, was about the fact that the Ely-Haughley upgrade is incredibly important. We want to move freight from HGVs on to our rail network. However, that is not a silver bullet for our local road system. As I say, 12,000 HGVs a day cross the Orwell bridge. We also have the Copdock junction, which I have talked to the previous Roads Minister about on a number of occasions. It is a crucial pinch point in our local road network, and one that impacts on Felixstowe. I am really hoping that we can move it forward in a future road investment strategy programme, after it was pushed from RIS3 to RIS4. However, we have structural weaknesses within our road network. Although those schemes are incredibly important, there still seems to be a single point of failure in the Orwell bridge. Every time the bridge closes, Ipswich and the surrounding area grind to a halt. That pushes HGVs on to our country roads and unsuitable road networks, which creates an even bigger problem for road maintenance. Residents sit in traffic for hours, businesses lose money, emergency services are delayed and our local economy pays the price too.