Private roads go ahead
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• Government cash for road building will not be cut back if private firms build and operate more highways in Britain, says Chief Treasury Secretary John Major. He is urging the construction industry to come forward with imaginative plans for private-sector road schemes.
Giving the green light for an expansion in privately financed routes, he says: "The way is now open for the private sector to bring forward its schemes and its skills, secure in the knowledge that we will be keen to endorse them, provided they provide value for money for the tax payer and the road user."
But Major, who is being tipped by some MPs as a leading candidate to take over the Transport Department in a summer reshuffle, insists that private road financing would not mean roads budget cuts. Only days before Transport Secretary Paul Channon unveiled a big expansion in the road programme, Major has dismissed the idea that "there is no point in promoting privately financed roads because the Treasury would simply reduce public provision".