More road plans postponed !mho evidence is challenged • Almost
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half of new road improvement schemes promised by Government for 1994/5 have been postponed, according to the British Road Federation. The BRF blames the Transport Secretary for allowing Chancellor Kenneth Clarke to cut the next two years' roads budget by £200m.
Twenty two new starts were scheduled for 1994/5 by the Highways Agency, but with only a few weeks to go before the end of the financial year the agency has been forced to reduce the target to 13. Even the revised target might not be met as contracts have been let on only eight schemes. Among those postponed indefinitely are improvement schemes on the A34 Newbury bypass and the A13 Wenning-ton to Mar Dyke.
When the Highways Agency was launched in April 1994 it was given the target of advanc ing 106 schemes to later stages of the planning process, but the BRF says that goal has now been cut to 84 schemes, including 18 that were not on the original list. The Government has fallen short of its targets for starting road schemes every year since 1989 but the BRF says this year's performance is the worst yet.
This year's debacle can be explained by November's budget when the Secretary of State for transport gave away nearly 30% of his budget," says BRF director Richard Diment. Roads minister John Watts defends the Highways Agency's record. "It is wrong to assume that performance can only be measured in new major road schemes started," he says. "We have made it clear that the trunk road network is broadly complete. Our priority now is to concentrate on safety, congestion and pollution."