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"There is thus a strong case for basing future highway strategy on the careful selection of roads for comprehensive improvement rather than upon a series of isolated improvements to the most congested lengths of the trunk roads network." This phrase from the Ministry of Transport's Green Paper on the strategic plan for inter-urban roads, published on Wednesday, echoes an approach which this journal among others has advocated for a very long time. For too long there has been a tinkering with existing roads over a wide area rather than a concentration on providing first-class standards on the relatively few routes which are absolutely vital to the movement of industrial traffic.
It is not just a play on words to say that this Green Paper is not a blueprint; it is a plan for a plan, and one of the most welcome aspects is that the Minister is inviting comment on this new road strategy at a very early stage. He has made a point of welcoming views from the road transport industry—which means just one more subject for the operator associations to tackle. They are being given the opportunity to help in the planning of the vital tracks upon which their members' vehicles will run for very many years.
No doubt there will be regional and sectional interests who feel that their particular needs are inadequately met by the proposals (which are summarized on pages 14-15 of this issue). But in general the scheme gives hope of an end to some of the most nonsensical gaps in England's communications network. Readers who study the map will note that Hull, Harwich, Felixstowe, Folkestone, the Tilbury area, Southampton and the West Country are among the places likely to be served by "strategy routes", which rightly indicates the economic importance placed on good links between producing areas and the export outlets.
When the new "strategy roads" are looked at alongside the motorway routes one begins to see the sort of network for which operators have been crying out for 30 years and more. But these new works are, of course, still years away and the M-way programme has yet to be accomplished. All we have at present is an assurance that the Ministry is ready with "a large number of new highway schemes" when the current programmes run out in the early 1970s.
With his Green Paper the Minister seems likely to put roads in the limelight in a way which no incumbent of St. Christopher House has done since Ernest Marples. If this helps to get greater support for his strategic roads plan, then all power to his elbow. We simply hope that the whole thing is not a public relations exercise designed to disguise a lack of real action.
The longstop
Monday's roadside check in the Eastern traffic area, attended by CM, appears to provide strong confirmation of the suspicions that some operators of older vehicles in rough condition are simply ignoring testing and plating. Fears that this would happen unless enforcement was rigorous and widespread have been expressed for nearly a year by the operator associations. They rightly fee] that their acceptance of the plating and testing scheme should be matched by Ministry efforts to catch those who will otherwise have an unfair advantage over responsible operators.
This week's checks are, we hope, merely a token of a much more sustained campaign throughout the country to get the badly maintained vehicles off the roads and catch the test dodgers in salutary numbers.