Nationwide road tolling could become a reality if new proposals to privatise the Highways Agency are taken up by Whitehall.
The proposal to sell off the Highways Agency in bits to private companies comes in a recent report from the RAC Foundation.
The RAC Foundation says: "With the anticipated severe pressures on the public finances over the coming years, government may see the financial case for selling a stake in the Highways Agency as attractive - particularly set against an imputed value of £85billion."
The privatisation proposal is only one of a number of possible solutions to the increasing pressure on the UK's road network, however. Other options being floated include the creation of a public corporation in the mould of the BBC or Network Rail and which would run the road network.
"We need a shake-up of the institutions that control the road network," Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC foundation, told PistonHeads. "The crucial point is that we need to ensure that some of the revenues generated by the roads - whether through tolls or taxation - are used for improvements to the UK's roads and not just slipped into the Exchequer's coffers. A transparent body, independent of the government, would be a way to achieve this."
If the responsibility for the road network was taken away from central government, either by a privatisation process or the creation of a new public body, there would presumably be the need for a new regulatory body. PH humbly suggests the name Offroad...
Don't worry too much, though. Even if they do happen, proper road tolls are still a long way off. Stephen Glaister again: "In the long-run, road-tolling could become a reality, and I think it will need to. But in the immediate future the most likely funding solution would be shadow-tolls, where the government pays private contractors a maintenance fee based on the number of cars using a particular piece of road.
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