CHOKING THE MONEY SUPPLY
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• New road building in this country has almost ground to a standstill. The Government has announced a targeted programme of just 37 new schemes but does not plan to spend a penny on them on them until the 2000/01 financial year. Even then it will spend only £51m in the first year, which is small beer by road construction standards. This compares with the 400-500 schemes which were included in the white paper Roads to Prosperity which was launched in the mid-1980s.
Schemes included in the list of 37 are
two contracts on the AIM between
Ferrybridge-Hook Moor and WetherbyWalshford, together worth £210m; widening the M25 between Junctions 12-15 (£94m); and improvements around Stonehenge on the A303 (£125m).
These schemes are due to start in the next seven years and follow another 11 schemes, including the Birmingham Northern Relief Road and the Derby Southern bypass, which were announced in an "accelerated programme" in 1997.
The Government has promised to set up regional planning conferences to consider a further 44 schemes but has also announced that it will divest itsere of responsibility or 30% of the existing trunk road network by handing it over to local authorities to manage.
In Scotland and Wales the situation is more cloudy because of the recently set up Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assemblies. In Scotland It is believed that work on the A74 will be completed and then the road will be renamed the M6 to give a continuous motorway link from Birmingham to Glasgow.
This project might also include a southerly bypass for Glasgow, but the proposed Aberdeen bypass has been shelved.
In Wales the major scheme is the completion of the A55 to Anglesey and some measure of relief will also be given to the M4 around Newport.