Road Schemes Will Pay Dividends
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EVIDENCE of an enlightened outJ—Alook on roads was given last Friday by Mr. Harold Watkinson. Minister of Transport, in a speech at Thornby. Gloucestershire.
Explaining why, in their efforts to halt inflation, the Government have decided not to limit the expanded road programme, he said:— " This decision was taken solely on • the grounds that the development of a more efficient road system is absolutely essential to greater industrial efficiency and to lowering transport costs. A very conservative estimate puts the cost of traffic congestion to the .nation at £150m. a year; it is probably much higher than this. All the major road schemes which we are at present implementing are based on strictly commercial justification."
The railway modernization programme had been limited because it had had a year or so to get well under way. Mr.
Watkinson regarded the restriction of the British Transport Commission's capital investment as a challenge to every employee of the State transport undertaking. It was not a retrograde step.
B18 " The Government expects." he said, "that in present circumstances the Commission ... must see that modernization makes a greater contribution at the earliest possible moment to the efficient and lower-cost transport which' this country must secure. If this end is not achieved on the railways, then the very large sums of money involved will pay no dividend to the nation.
" I rely on the railways to make their full contribution to curing inflation and increasing national efficiency, not in the distant future, but at once." Mr. Watkinson added.