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Chancellor Healey's cut-back in road expenditure between now and 1979 is yet one more false economy. Expenditure. on roads was planned to grow at the rate of 1 per cent between 1975 and 1979. Now it is to be cut by 23 per cent. Before it was agreed to increase the road expenditure by 1 per cent some evidence must have persuaded the Treasury that a need existed. There is ample evidence that demand for both road passenger and freight traffic will grow annually. A dilapidated road network, and that is what Healey's package means, will lead to congestion, delay and industrial inefficiency, which will in turn impair our national growth.
There can be no doubt that one day the roads will require to be built and unless the Chancellor can reverse the, economic trend of the world then every year's delay means a whacking increase in costs, increases which all of us will have to meet.
London's congestion would now be a thing of the past had not the ringway and box systems been delayed, postponed and then cancelled by successive County Hall administrations, The fact is London cannot now afford to build congestion-freeing ring roads, Healey's delays could mean that Britain will never be able to afford to maintain its existing road entwork to acceptable standards, far less build new roads.