Once again, everyday life in Lowestoft is being heavily disrupted by road works causing traffic chaos.
Business suffers and people are put off from coming to the town. We already know that many
residents of south Lowestoft shop in Beccles instead.

However, I can’t see the point in blaming Anglian water. We need and want our sewers to be
repaired so that people don’t suffer from flooding and foul sewage overflows. I remember, as
Waveney’s MP, on more than one occasion, pressing for work to be done to help residents in central
Lowestoft whose homes were regularly affected.

The gridlock caused by the current road works is further evidence of Lowestoft’s hopelessly
inadequate road network. Because traffic from all over town has to funnel into the harbour bridge,
any road works anywhere near it will bring the town to a standstill, when the only alternative bridge
is three miles away. It doesn’t have to be a bridge breakdown for us all to suffer.

The problem is that there is ONLY one place in Lowestoft to cross the river, except for the Oulton
Broad alternative with its railway gates. It’s not that there’s too much traffic wanting to get into the
town centre. If that were the case the shops wouldn’t be struggling. It’s simply that it’s all too often
a pain to get into town. That’s why fewer people are bothering and shops are suffering.

During my time as MP, the road infrastructure was improved by the South Lowestoft Relief Road
and the Northern Spine Road. A feasibility study was completed which showed that a third crossing
would meet the government’s benefit cost criteria and it designated the best location. But our
representative on the region’s transport prioritisation committee (Suffolk County Council) never put
the scheme forward.

Now we hear little about a third crossing. Instead, we are being fobbed off with a £6 million
footbridge. I fail to see how such a folly would help us overcome the disruption we are currently
suffering. Lowestoft will continue to struggle unless we get a third crossing.