17:20 Wednesday 5th December 2012
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
CHRIS MANN: I know that you’re putting money into science. That’s a big thing around here. People will be very pleased with that. But at the same time you’ve announced four major road schemes today, but improvements to the A14 are not on that.
SAJID JAVID: There were some improvements to roads up and down the country announced today. I’m sure there are probably some other examples up and down the country where people would like to hear news on their local roads. But that doesn’t mean to say it’s not happening. The important thing is that Government has also announced today that by cutting departmental budgets, and some other savings, it’s putting aside £5 billion extra of capital investment by the public sector in roads and other infrastructure up and down the country.
CHRIS MANN: Well we must be at the back of the queue.
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17:40 Wednesday 5th December 2012
Drive BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
JOHN BRIDGE: It was very disappointing that when he talked about the additional considerable investment on infrastructure, the A14 wasn’t mentioned at all. And the Minister on your programme didn’t seem to know or understand the importance of the A14, particularly to the economy. And we are told by Government that it’s actually at the top of their priority list for dealing with. Yet I think this shows us that it’s anywhere but at the top of the list. So a real frustration. They tell us that they’re trying to bring the implementation of the upgrade forward, but in order to do that, we need some commitment and know that the funding is going to be available. And regretfully we haven’t got that today.
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