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Industry chiefs war] road plans
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• Transport industry chiefs fear that the Government's White Paper on roads, due to be unveiled today (18 May), will not tackle the nation's growing traffic problems.
The much-leaked paper is expected to propose: double spending on motorways and trunk roads to £10 billion over the next 10 years; eight-lanes for the Ml, M6 and the M25 (which carries 800,000 vehicles a day more than was planned when it opened in 1986); improved road links to key ROW) ports; a streamlining of development and planning proce dures — and 1,500km of new motorway and trunk roads.
But there is no indication where the Government will find the finance for the programme, The Freight Transport Association and Road Haulage Association have both cast doubts on the effectiveness of the Paper without an investment guarantee.
FTA director-general Garry Turvey says: "If the White Paper carries a guarantee of money available in the long term it is welcome, but if it is just good intentions and subject to annual haggling with the Treasury it is not such good news."
RHA director-general Bryan Colley also emphasises this point: "The big worry is whether the money is there, and whether the Government is prepared to cough up more of the money which road users pay. This is the time to increase transport investment."
The British Road Federation has criticised the proposal to double road spending as overambitious — deputy directorgeneral Richard Diment reckons 50% is more likely. "This is still very substantial, but the important point is not just to have additional schemes in the Paper such as widening motorways. The pace of construction needs to be speeded up," says Diment. "There is no point if road building plans are going to take more than 10 years. We will still be building into the next century."
The Bus and Coach Council stresses that it does not want the White Paper to be a "planner's paradise" and is calling on hauliers and coach operators to be involved at a local and national level.
0 Transport Secretary Paul Channon dismissed claims at the Scottish Tory Party conference last week that the North is to be denied improved roads for the sake of the South. He said: "I make no apologies for demanding good links in the South. The North's economic future depends on it. The completion of the M20 in Kent will make all the difference for businesses shipping goods by road to the Channel ports and the Channel Tunnel, and so will the widening of the M25."
But Richard Dickson, assistant district manager of the RHA's North-eastern district, says that the whole of the country's transport network needs to be upgraded. "If the south of England receives most of the Government's transport investment, the situation could occur where the North could not compete with the South — let alone the rest of Europe come 1992," he warns.