Channon agrees more for roads
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• More cash is on the way for the Government's road building and improvement programme, along with a long-range review of the congestion crisis.
At Westminster this week, Transport Secretary Paul Channon revealed some of the details of his new roads budget for 1989/90 — and the two following years — in the wake of Chancellor Nigel Lawson's auWinn statement to the Commons.
Lawson has earmarked 2220 million for the building and repairing of motorways and trunk roads next year with £250 million for 1990/91. He also wants some money to be allocated to strengthening the country's bridges.
As pressure mounts from both the road haulage industry and MPs for a huge boost to the road building programme, Channon has also announced a wide-ranging review of the motorway and trunk road network next spring, in a move seen as an attempt to take some heat out of the crisis. Clearly linked with his department's spending potential over the next three years or more will be the proposals for increased privatisation of road building and road control which Channon is also currently examining.
Channon, however, is wary of introducing road pricing on existing routes, though he may allow private contractors who build new roads to recoup this money with tolls.
Inner-city road pricing has been seen as a way to price out motorists, with electronically-triggered meters recording the use of urban routes. Channon says he does not want to reduce road use, rather to respond to increased demand: "If we don't keep pace with demand, we slow Britain down and we impose appalling burdens on British business," he says.
So far the Government has dropped way off the pace, with demand up 40% in the last decade and road capacity up by only 5%.