Tories to Give Priority to Road-building
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THE Conservative party promise in their Election manifesto to double I the amount of road-building during the next five years compared with the past five years. Our first priority in England and Wales will be to complete the five major schemes and motorways. which with their urban links and through routes will provide the framework of a new road system.
" In Scotland we mean to complete the Forth road bridge, the two Clyde tunnels and the reconstruction of the Carlisle-Glasgow-Stirling trunk road, and to speed up the programme of Highland road development,they proclaim.
There will also be a countrywide drive to improve the existing road network, and to introduce schemes to relieve congestion in the towns. The Severn and Tay road bridges will both be started. "The rising volume of traffic, a yardstick of rising prosperity, must be matched by an intensive drive to build better and safer roads,it is stated.
Under the railway modernization programme, over 3,000 new diesel locomotives will be in service by 1965, 8,000 miles of track relaid, and electric traction increased by 60 per cent. A Minister of Science. who will have a seat in the Cabinet, will promote scientific and technological development.
The party affirm their opposition to the extension of nationalization. Everything possible will be done to ensure better commercial standards of operation, and less centralization in industries already State-controlled.
The Labour and Liberal manifestos were expected to be published by this week-end. The final touches were put to the Socialists' programme on Tuesday for publication today.
Election candidates are to be pressed by the Pedestrians Association to support the establishment of a special Ministry to deal with road safety, and a 20 m.p.h. speed limit on tankers carrying inflammable substances.
ELECTION DELAYS "C" SURVEY
PUBLICATION of the Traders Road Transport Association's survey of Clicence vehicles, planned for this month and delayed as a result of the printing dispute, will be postponed until after the General Election. More than a year's work has gone into the analysis of a mass of statistical data.
The survey represents an important addition to factual information about commercial road transport. Publication has been delayed because the Association think that, in the welter of Election news, it will lose some of its impact upon the public.
No Half-truths in Election Campaign
I Iroad haulage was to be an issue in the General Election it was to be hoped that rational arguments, and not half-truths, would be offered for the electorate's judgment, said Mr. R. Morton Mitchell, chief executive officer of the Road Haulage Association, commenting on a party political broadcast last week by Mr. A. Greenwood, M.P.
Serious accusations against hauliers, which could not be allowed to pass without comment, were made by Mr. Greenwood, said Mr. Mitchell. Figures of offences against transport regulations were quoted with the obvious intention of placing the whole blame at the door of the free-enterprise haulier.
It would have been more honest if Mr. Greenwood had drawn some distinction between the vehicles of freeenterprise operators and those of Stateoperated services. "It would surprise me to learn," he added, "that the incidence of infringements was proportionately any less among the 16,000 British Road Services fleet than among the 14m. goods vehicles operated under A, B or C licences."
Year after year the Licensing Authorities had commented on the improvement in the standard of maintenance of goods vehicles, but had not extended the same approval to the smaller types not operated by hauliers.
BUSKS FOR MUMBLES TRAINS
LICENCES have beenâ– granted by the South Wales Traffic Commissioners to the South Wales Transport Co., Ltd., to run buses along five miles of the coast when the Swansea and Mumbles Railway is closed.