Guess who maintains the roads?

Agency spends thousands telling you

By PH Staff / Tuesday, 6 September 2005 / Loading comments

HA signage

The Highways Agency, which looks after Britain's roads on behalf of the Department of Transport, has spent over £70,000 telling drivers what it does.

It erected 34 signs on the M6 and A66 which say ‘Highways Agency’ and ‘Highways Agency End’ with the aim, said the HA, of raising awareness of its role in managing roads.

Local MP for Penrith and the Border David Maclean said the signs were a waste of money. According to Cumbria Online, he said: "This is the most scandalous waste of £76,000 to tell motorists what they already know, that the Government is in charge of our motorways and major trunk roads."

MacLean raised the issue with the Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, whose anodyne response was: "The purpose is to advise road users that a road is maintained, managed and operated by the Highways Agency. This enables road users to direct their views to the correct authority and increases awareness of the Agency’s role in managing the country's strategic road network."

As one Parliamentary fact sheet points out, it costs an average of £369 to answer a spoken Parliamentary question, and £134 a written one, and the fact that MPs put down questions at the rate of several hundred a day suggests that they regard this as money well spent.

Yet MacLean may have a point. On his asking why his constituents with businesses in the area can't get signs put up, the HA said the public "would be confused by too many signs". He said: "Yet these same people are cluttering the M6 and A66 with 34 totally worthless signs with no interest to anybody except the busy little bureaucrats who thought of them."