Some good news in the run up to Christmas is that the A3 around Guildford, especially the Hogs Back junction, is to be included in the government’s £15 billion road improvements scheme. The bad news is that construction isn’t planned to start until 2021.

The construction is planned to include widening the A3 to reduce congestion and improving junctions including the Hog’s Back junction with the A31.

Obviously is good news but we really need improvements now and not in six years time and all of us in Guildford Liberal Democrats will be lobbying the government to make the improvements as soon as possible. What we also need are improvements to buses and cycle routes so that less people are forced to use their cars in the first place.

Personally, I’d go so far as to say that the power to make improvements to A roads should be devolved from central government to Surrey so that we can make these decisions ourselves rather than waiting on the national Department of Transport to decide whether to make improvements or not.

This, incidentally, is why we have the ludicrous situation of the Onslow Park and Ride scheme which is under-used thanks to the council building the car park but the Department of Transport refusing to build an access to it from the A3.