For communities along the A21 – and for the towns of Bexhill and Hastings at its southern end – this road is far more than a line on a map. It is the principal strategic connection between East Sussex’s coastal communities and London, the M25, international gateways and the wider South East economy. When it works, opportunity expands. When it fails, deprivation deepens and economic growth is hampered.
South of Pembury, the A21 still falls well short of what this role demands. Large sections remain single carriageway, despite carrying traffic volumes entirely unsuited to the road’s original design. Tight bends, multiple junctions and direct access from homes and farms create an inconsistent and fragile route, undermining reliability, safety and confidence.
Several villages- including Flimwell, Hurst Green and Whatlington – sit directly on this strategic trunk road. Around 1,500 residents live with approximately 20,000 vehicles a day passing through their communities, many of them HGVs. These places are divided by traffic levels no village should endure.
In my Adjournment Debate on 14 April, I told the House that this is “not an abstract policy issue; it is lived experience for families every single day”. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Hurst Green, where the primary school sits directly on the A21. Parents stop on a national trunk road to collect children, while narrow, unprotected pavements make walking or cycling unrealistic.
Safety concerns are not hypothetical. Rural single carriageway A roads account for more than half of all deaths on A roads, despite carrying less traffic overall. Following a recent fatal incident at Robertsbridge, I said in the debate that “the tragic loss of life underlines the structural risks of this stretch of road”.
National Highways has invested around £20 million in safety measures since 2020. Those schemes are welcome, but as I warned, “we are repeatedly treating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying cause”. Incremental fixes manage risk temporarily; they do not change capacity, resilience or long term performance.
The economic consequences fall most heavily on Bexhill and Hastings. Both towns contain serious pockets of deprivation, while productivity across the wider corridor remains roughly 20 per cent below the South East average. Unreliable journey times restrict labour markets, deter investment and narrow opportunity.
This is not a failure of ambition. Regeneration funding and local growth initiatives have made progress but as I put it in the debate, “piecemeal local schemes cannot overcome a broken strategic link”.
We also know what works. The dualling of the A21 between Tonbridge and Pembury cut serious collisions and improved reliability. Locally, the Queensway Gateway Road and the Bexhill–Hastings Link Road unlocked housing, jobs and private investment by replacing unreliable approaches with modern strategic access.
Strategic road investment unlocks growth; marginal fixes simply ration constraint. Dualling the A21 south of Pembury, including village bypasses, would improve safety, reduce pollution and severance, strengthen resilience and offer far better value for money over time.
As I told the House, “for many residents, the ability to access work, training or better paid employment depends on the A21”. If we are serious about coastal opportunity and regional fairness, we must move beyond mitigation and make the strategic case for change.
The A21 is the gateway to some of the most disadvantaged communities in the South East. Dualling it is about safety, reliability and dignity for villages today, and about productivity and opportunity for future generations.
Ministers often speak about levelling up, resilience and long term value. The A21 brings those themes together. Continuing with short term fixes leaves families exposed, businesses constrained and public money absorbed by repeated interventions.
Advancing a full dualling scheme would allow proper design, environmental mitigation and community engagement, rather than reactive adjustments. It would provide certainty for investors, reliability for workers and safer streets for villages. Above all, it would recognise that coastal communities deserve infrastructure that works, not excuses for why it cannot. That judgment now shapes whether opportunity is widened or withheld, and whether national policy aligns with the daily realities faced by communities living beside the A21 every single day in East Sussex today and tomorrow for families and businesses.
