FTA want Dip roads
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VOLUNTARY and joint committees taking control of road planning, highways and traffic management when the metropolitan authorities and the Greater London Council are abolished will not work, said the Freight Transport Association in its five-page submission to the Department of Transport entitled Streamlining the Cities.
Such a move would be ineffective and inefficient, as past experience has proved, said FTA director of planning and information Richard Turner.
Instead, Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley should take control of these areas, Mr Turner said. A statutory committee would simply re-create what is being taken away and would end up as second best.
The area that is under the control of the Transport Secretary should be enhanced, the FTA said. "The trunk roads in urban areas are under the direct responsibility of the Transport Secretary," Mr Turner said. "We think that there is scope for trunk roads to be increased in all metropolitan areas."
On metropolitan primary routes, the FTA called for the Transport Secretary to give them a special status and a 75 per cent grant to local authorities to cover their upkeep.
"The primary routes are very important to lorry traffic and are too important to be left to local district and borough councils," Mr Turner said.
"The Transport Secretary should give these routes special status and should be responsible for overseeing them. He should have a positive duty to get involved in planning and traffic management for these roads," he said.
The grant for the metropolitan primary roads should be along the lines of the Transport Supplementary Grant of pre1971, he said.
Moving on to the more general subject of abolition, the FTA said: "We see nothing basically wrong with central government administering a central government function such as the strategic road network.
"But it would be wrong it the road network was divided up among 69 district councils. Each one would take a parochial view of priorities, which should not be the case," he said.
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