'He plans to cut public spending and give what he can as tax relief'
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N ext week chancellor Kenneth
Clarke will reveal his plans For managing the economy in the lead-up to the general election in Summer 1997 at the latest.
If press speculation is to be believed, he plans to cut as much public spending as possible and to give away what he can in tax relief for voters. Unfortunately For the transport industry, some of the speculation on spending cuts points directly at the roads budget. Rumour has it that Mr Clarke, an ex-Transport Minister, who ought to know the facts of life, is not considering improving the road system, but actually cutting road maintenance and construction budgets that have already been sliced by over a third since the Roads for Prosperity white paper was published in 1989. For all of us involved in road transport in 1995, struggling with congestion and serving the customer, even to question the need to improve our roads network is plain daft. Every car driver believes he or she is a transport expert and many keep telling industry to take the train, get out of their way, transship it or ship it, but not use the roads. These solutions ore, of course, all "legitimate" personal views to clear the roads, "FOR ME!"
And the squealing greens, who continue to have faith in a good and flat earth, know that we do not need to move all these goods around. They know that most lorries are running empty anyway {of course they are!), they know that everybody but them does not really want the range and quantity of goods available every day, everywhere. So where do we find the truth? Our schizophrenia about roads actually encapsulates society's dilemma about transport itself. Everybody wants the benefits the lorry brings but does not want the lorry. Well hard luck: society cannot have it both ways. Transport managers will do an they can to be economical, efficient and environment friendly. Transport managers, drivers, retailers and manufacturers all live on the same good, if not flat, earth as everybody else and they are as concerned about protecting the environment as everybody else. But they also know, better than anybody else, that delivering a 1990's lifestyle is not achieved by some mythical and unseen "beam-meup" vaporizer, but on the back of a safe and efficient 1990s lorry. Such a lifestyle, is self-evidently dependent on an adequate and efficient roads infrastructure. iF we are to improve prosperity, employment, comfort and the standard of living, then we need to improve our road system. To prosper we need to be competitive and have a competitive road system. We need to make sure that the present network is well maintained, so that we can squeeze the most use out of it. We need to improve the trunk road and motorway network to reduce congestion and improve reliability. We need to accelerate our bypass construction programme, so as to free up congestion and improve town and village environments. The Chancellor, the Government and parliament have to acknowledge that in the absence of any other realistic remedy, we need to spend more on our roads, not less.