Wednesday 1st December 2004

More cash to be spent on roads

£1bn over next three years, says government

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The government announced yesterday that it will spend a £1bn on major improvements to strategic roads of national importance over the next three years. This is in addition to the £900m programme of schemes on strategic roads in the regions, which have been announced over the last two weeks. Details of individual schemes will be published in the spring, said the transport department.

The Highways Agency (HA) already has 14 major improvement schemes under construction on the strategic road network now, and plans to start a further 33 by April 2008, said HA boss Archie Robertson. At the same time, the HA will continue to develop proposals for future schemes, which will be progressed subject to regional priorities. Total investment by the Highways Agency will be about £1.9bn over the next three years, it's claimed.

The programme shows the Agency's commitment to delivering carefully targeted road improvements as part of the government's total transport investment, reckons the transport department. Tackling congestion, improving key junctions and providing bypasses for hard-pressed local communities continues to be an important part of developing the country's transport network.

Transport secretary Alistair Darling  said, "This package of schemes will provide real improvements where they are most needed."

Additionally the Agency is improving the management of the network to get the best out of existing capacity. The new traffic officer service will reduce incident-related congestion by clearing up after incidents and accidents. The first traffic officers started working on motorways in the West Midlands in April. Over the next 12 months, the on road service supported by seven Regional Control Centres and working jointly with the Police will be rolled out across the country

Mr Robertson said: "We will continue to provide high quality information to road users to enable them to plan their journeys before they start and also to make use of diversions to avoid congested routes as a result of incidents."

[stace3610]

So the Government is going to return £330m-ish annually for the benefit of motorists that provide them with annual revenue of well over £50bn? Well I'm excited! Especially as I'd be a fool to believe that any of this money will be spent on increasing capacity rather than on pointless schemes to "encourage" us to use the roads less: charging us to drive through parts of our own cities; revamping speeding fine legislation; more cameras; generally annoying us into using the non-existent, vastly over-priced or impractical alternatives (could they be closing railway routes? Surely not!).

I'm very impressed by Tony and the boys!

[Master]

I thought the spoof about "Nevada man on death row" was fairly transparent. This story looks even less likely to be true

[pd86]

first post for me but a valid point i feel, all the same.
Britain is always going to have a conjestion problem no matter how much money the government throws at it because we are a small island. With a population the same as France but less than half the land it is innevitable we will encounter problems as most of our major cities are served by thesame few roads where as in these other countries people are coming from further afield (ie not just from the north)and consequently traffic is ditributed better across their roads instead of everyone piling onto the same roads as we experience here.
well thats my theory anyway.

[spaximus]

Is it me or do I smell an election spin. Once back in power they go back on their word (if as a country we are dumb enough to vote them back in)and use the enviroment card as a reason.

[v8thunder]

article said:

The government announced yesterday that it will spend a £1bn on major improvements to strategic roads of national importance over the next three years. This is in addition to the £900m programme of schemes on strategic roads in the regions, which have been announced over the last two weeks. Details of individual schemes will be published in the spring, said the transport department.

.

Hmm. 'strategic'. So that basically means they have plans to use certain roads as part of a strategy to raise more funds and enforce their doctrine.

article said:

The Highways Agency (HA) already has 14 major improvement schemes under construction on the strategic road network now, and plans to start a further 33 by April 2008, said HA boss Archie Robertson. At the same time, the HA will continue to develop proposals for future schemes, which will be progressed subject to regional priorities. Total investment by the Highways Agency will be about £1.9bn over the next three years, it's claimed.

Absolutely no mention of actually building new roads or increasing the capacity of existing ones. 'Improvement', 'development' and 'progress' mean whatever the government want them to mean

article said:

The programme shows the Agency's commitment to delivering carefully targeted road improvements as part of the government's total transport investment, reckons the transport department. Tackling congestion, improving key junctions and providing bypasses for hard-pressed local communities continues to be an important part of developing the country's transport network.

Again, no mention of actual action, just more vague jargon, so 'improving' can mean more scameras, and everyone always says they'll build bypasses but they never get round to it.

Alistair 'The lost Gallagher brother' Darling said:

"This package of schemes will provide real improvements where they are most needed."

I've seen your idea of 'improvements' already and I don't like them.

article said:

Additionally the Agency is improving the management of the network to get the best out of existing capacity. The new traffic officer service will reduce incident-related congestion by clearing up after incidents and accidents. The first traffic officers started working on motorways in the West Midlands in April. Over the next 12 months, the on road service supported by seven Regional Control Centres and working jointly with the Police will be rolled out across the country

Sounds OK but I bet more scameras, lower limits and more methods of taxation will be included in that.

article said:

Mr Robertson said: "We will continue to provide high quality information to road users to enable them to plan their journeys before they start and also to make use of diversions to avoid congested routes as a result of incidents."

Yeah? Who told you to say that?

[wedg1e]

As if they'll ever come along and itemsise where the money was spent

A billion quid buys a lot of scameras and traffic-calming bollocks.

Doubtless there'll be new departments formed, surveys carried out.. oh, and pockets lined....

[CTE]

Its alway`s easy to jump on the bandwagon, and accuse the government/local authorities etc/etc, but their ain`t no smoke without fire.
Despite all the good and the bad, I think what really gets up my nose is that even if they do plough £1.9 billion of our hard earned taxes into road improvements (whatever they may be), is do we get value for money.
How many surveys, planning committe meetings etc,etc,etc,etc, do we need. Then the sticky fingered contractors then get to see the green stuff, and make whats left dissappear. We end up with a few more traffic lights, road furniture and roundabouts etc to make driving anywhere even more dangerous and confusing. I do a lot of travelling due to my work, and you don`t need a Phd to work out how to improve traffic flow, you don`t even need to alter any roads.
The bottom line is, "who`s accountable" for mispending our money, and therefore having to constantly dream up ways of extracting even more money from us. We all know its happening, so come the revolution, I`ll be at the front. Thats assuming I ain`t locked up for this, in our free speaking democratic society, Mr Blair...rruugh.