Buried Treasure
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By JANUS
WBITING from an address in Europe, a correspondent to The Times complains of London's out-of-date road system, and asks whether the ault lies with the London County Council, the ioroughs, London Transport, the police, the Home )ffice, the Ministry of Transport, or the London Traffic S„dvisory Committee, The list is an odd one, but it erves the purpose of showing how incomprehensible and razy the outside observer must find our procedure for uilding better roads.
IL• in fairness, one or two blameless names should e taken out of the list, there are many more waiting ) fill the vacancies. Some time ago the Ministry of .ransport dragged the Board of Trade into the road middleby asking the Regional Boards for Industry to onsider whether the present roads and bridges provide dequate facilities to prevent serious congestion and to how industrial traffic to flow at reasonable economic 3eeds; and whether the existing standard of road surices is adequate to prevent undue wear and tear to 3mmercial vehicles. A number Of other organizations )ok this as a cue to submit their own views. Several
tailed memoranda have since been sent to the Ministry, id no doubt more are on the way. .
The frequency with which the schemes have been :aching him may perhaps have prompted the Minister's :cent. remark that he already had enough of them to ;quire the expenditure of £1,100m. on local work alone. lthough the Association of British Chambers of Cornerce, the Federation of British Industries and the rest we produced impressive facts and figures, and made 'me sensible suggestions, it is hard to understand why ley should have been put to the trouble. The Minister lows as well as, or better than, anybody else what 'ads and bridges need improving, and what new conruction ought to be undertaken. His difficulty is to id enough money, or any money at all.
Determine Priorities
The A.B.C.C. asks the Government "to determine id execute priorities." This is, in fact, the only possible )licy at the present time, when the Minister who talks
terms of thousands of millions thinks himself e-tunate if he can get as little as £1m. from a reluctant -easury. Most of the things that want.doing are well 'own; it remains for some appropriate authority to range them in chronological order. The British Road deration state, for example, that the Ministry have 'CI lists containing 213 uncompleted road schemes, each 'sting over £10,000. On every one substantial expendire has already been incurred, and the money thus ent is of no more use than buried treasure until the )rk is finished.
As the Minister has to make a beginning somewhere,
could do worse than start with these uncompleted hemes. In fact, the B.R.F. have chosen six that could 11 be put in hand at once. The people likely to make good deal of use of these improved communications )uld no doubt like to see them at the top of the list. iticism would come from other parts of the country. le can see the force of it. The six schemes would st nearly. £20m., and the Government might take eeral years to dole out eVen this amount. Interested rties who failed to make a fuss might find their
project left until last, with a slight hope that the next generation might see it fulfilled. On the other hand, it would be impracticable to share a small sum of money among a large number of schemes. There is no point in tinkering with the work in hand and adding to the buried treasure.
Perhaps the Minister hesitates to start a queue because he knows how great will be the throng of claimants for leading places. The number and variety of the interested parties add to the confusion. It is instructive to note, for example, how many organizations and, individuals are working, sometimes quite independently, towards the completion of the first project on the B.R.F. list, the Dartford-Purfleet tunnel.
Narrow and Over-burdened The ,need for another link between Essex and Kent is established beyond argument, and was acknowledged by the authoritiesbefore the war when a pilot tunnel was driven under the Thames. • Travel and interchange of goods between the two counties would increase if the tunnel were built, but are already considerable. The nearest ways for getting across the river are the ferries at Tilbury and Woolwich; but they cannot cope with any great volume of traffic, and the general practice is to go up higher to the Blackwell and Rotherhithe Tunnels. These are narrow and over-burdened, and a breakdown or accident anywhere along the length can imprison a helpless line of vehicles in each direction. More and more vehicles tend to avoid the tunnels and make a detour through the City, adding to the congestion there:
The opening of the proposed 33-ft. wide tunnel from Dartford to Purfleet would save money and time out of all proportion to the £10m. that the project would cost. This may account for the wide range of interests that are clamouring for something to be done. For the purpose of conserving energy it would not be a bad thing for all of them to get together; but at present the only evidence of united action is provided by a Tunnel Executive Committee, which has representatives from the three county councils chiefly concerned and from a number of urban district councils.
The committee is an offshoot of the Eastern Regional Board for Industry, which reports through the Board of Trade to the Ministry of Transport. Also in the picture is the London and South Eastern Regional Board for Industry. Local authorities, including those mentioned above, are in touch with the South East England \ Development Board, whose approach to the Ministry of Transport would normally be through the local M.P.s and the Parliamentary question. Trade and industrial organizations are known to be collating information and marshalling protests, either through one of the regional or development boards, or independently.
There is treasure buried under the Thames. So many people are anxious to turn it to account that it is a pity they do not work more closely together. The evidence of the motorist, the passenger transport operator, and above all the industrialist and the carrier of his goods, would be overwhelming if it could be brought within the covers of a single document. The same could be said for scores, perhaps hundreds, of other schemes. The more concerted the propaganda, the more likely that sooner or later the Government Will have to begin taking action.