ROAD NEWS
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MORE FOR TENDER
• Local authorities may in future have to put out more road maintenance to competitive tender.
Junior Transport Minister Peter Bottomley last week announced proposals to amend the Direct Labour Organisation Regulations made under the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.
Currently, all general road maintenance jobs worth more than 250,000 and 30 per cent of those worth less have to be subject to competitive tender. The proposal is to reduce the 250,000 threshold to 225,000 and to increase the 30 per cent proportion to 60 per cent.
Commented Bottomley: "Now that we are spending over 21,000 million a year on maintenance, we must ensure that we get good value for our money."
SCHEMES TO SPEED UP
/ Junior Transport Minister Peter Bottomley is promising to speed up the development of major road schemes.
He was responding to the Economic Development Committee report that says the pre-construction stages of road schemes take too long. There is an average of 13 years between the conception of a scheme and its opening to traffic, of which only two years are spent actually building the road.
Said Bottomley: "The preparatory stages clearly take too long. As the Minister for roads, I shall be doing all I can to find ways of speeding things up."