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Page 16
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NICHOLAS RIDLEY, Secretary of State for Transport, welcomed the recent CBI and BRF reports as serious contributions to the debate on public expenditure.
Speaking at the CBI/British Road Federation conference in London, Mr Ridley answered criticisms that roads take too long to plan and build and that the programme is not big enough.
He said: "We live in a crowded island, and in a country where the state cannot deal arbitrarily with its citizens. People have legitimate interests as owners, as tenants and as citizens. Part of that price is that it is never going to be quick and easy to plan road schemes. As we turn to the problems of urban areas the difficulties will become even more acute. That does not mean we should not try to do better: we should and we are now considering the Vaizey Report on preconstruction procedures in road schemes, and where we go from there. But let no one under-estimate the difficulties. It would be too high a price to pay for a quicker delivery of road schemes, if legitimate individuals' rights were pushed to one side.
Mr Ridley believes in getting the best network the country can afford, "and I do not think the Government need be ashamed of its record over the last five years."
He said the Government had opened over 400 miles of new trunk road in England, including 174 miles of motorway, and in addition 42 bypasses taking through traffic out of over a hundred towns and villages.
The Secretary said he was spending more on roads — 12 per cent more in cash terms for trunk roads this year than 1983, "and what is more we are preserving the value of our spending in volume terms; indeed annual output is up by over 20 per cent compared with 1978/79.
"Looking to the future," Mr Ridley said, "the trunk road programme contains schemes worth some £5 billion to be built by the mid-90s. They will provide 1,250 miles of new road and I see that about half of them are listed in the CBI report. They include schemes to improve access to the east and south coast ports and a large number of bypasses for which there is a pressing need."
The Secretary of State concluded by saying that arguments for additional road schemes had to be supported by hard facts and, as the CBI report said, the case for more investment had to be made on a project-by-project basis. There were constraints to how much the Government could invest in roads. In particular, the Government had to consider the interests of the taxpayer and the level of public expenditure which the country could afford (see page 15).