Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I welcome this debate. My comments tonight will be directed at everyone in Dartford who signed the petition and all others in my wonderful constituency that I have the privilege of serving in this place.
Ahead of the election in July 2024, this country was crying out for change, and Dartford was no different. I recognise that there is now an expectation of that change being delivered as quickly as possible. We know that delivering real change is not easy—it takes time—but in my view, when I look around my constituency, it is happening. With around three years likely left until a general election, I want to use this moment briefly to take stock of what I said in Dartford that I would prioritise before the 2024 election and where progress is being made.
Dartford is one of the fastest growing towns in the UK, with lots of new homes being built. I very much welcome the new families who are making a great contribution to Dartford alongside our wonderful, hard-working existing communities, but they know that although the population has expanded over the last 15 years, very little has been spent on increasing the local infrastructure—the roads, the health provision—to meet the growing population. That really should not have come as a surprise to representatives of local government or national Government.
On NHS provision, I promised, in partnership with the Government, that we would make progress, and since the election we have been seeing that. We see it in the expanded community diagnostic centre at the Livingstone community hospital site and in the funding for a new intensive care unit at Darent Valley hospital, which will add crucial capacity elsewhere on the site. Waiting lists are coming down, but we have much more to do—that is what I say to Dartford residents who signed the petition—in particular on GP capacity across Swanscombe and Ebbsfleet, where pressure on appointments is most acute.
I recently visited Swanscombe health centre, which is among the busiest in Kent. It has added 11,000 patients to its roll in the last five years as a result of our growing community, and it desperately needs infrastructure investment to meet that growing need. Despite the fact that community infrastructure levy money is being spent on increased provision, that part of my constituency would be ideal for one of the new wave of neighbourhood health centres being planned by Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care. I hope to make that case robustly in the months ahead. If we have a general election, it will be difficult to do that.
Another key issue for Dartford on which I stood at the last election is that the town is regularly gridlocked by terrible traffic. My plan, which I put before residents at the election, was to get Dartford moving again—again, in partnership with the Government. We said we would invest in infrastructure, and we have had some hugely positive news on the lower Thames crossing, which will reduce congestion at the Dartford crossing and make Dartford residents’ lives freer from terrible air and the congestion that they see every day. Government funding is now in place, and planning consent has been given for the lower Thames crossing. We are now at the start of a procurement process for the machinery needed to dig under the River Thames and create the new crossing. I am eagerly awaiting news from the Government on the next steps on the private finance package that needs to be put in place to make the scheme work. I am anxious to see spades in the ground in the near future, under this Government.
One of the crucial projects to get Dartford moving again is the repair of Galley Hill Road, which collapsed in early 2023—almost three years ago—cutting a crucial route between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan). That road closure has led to an increase in traffic and, in particular, an increase in heavy good vehicles passing through roads in Swanscombe that cannot accommodate them. It has been a disaster for the community.
I am pleased that it was a visit to that site by Transport Ministers after the 2024 general election that inspired the Government to create the structures fund announced in the spending review last year. The fund is designed specifically to repair rundown transport infrastructure such as Galley Hill Road. I have no doubt that had the last general election result been different, such a fund would not be in place. With details on the fund to come in the months ahead, it will be on Kent county council to put in a bid to the fund that has the best possible chance of finally getting Galley Hill Road fixed and once and for all ending the chaos on Swanscombe’s roads and for its communities.
The final topic that I campaigned hard on at the general election and that I believe the Government are making a significant difference on is the restoration of neighbourhood policing. Each neighbourhood across Dartford is unique, and it is crucial that we rebuild relationships between communities and the police officers there to keep them safe. The neighbourhood policing guarantee, a key item in the 2024 manifesto and introduced by the Government last year, will put that into action alongside the 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables that we are putting into neighbourhood policing roles. We are already seeing more police in Dartford.