Loan to National Highway Authority:
Page 40
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A LOAN of £50m. a year for 10
years for speeific road schemes is strongly advocated by the British Road Federation. Moreover, they suggest that a national highway authority should be set up to achieve this end. Interest and repayment over, say, 30 years, even at the high rate of 41%, would amount to less than Om. a year for each £50m. on loan. This could easily come out of motor taxation, which is 10 times what the Treasury returns to the roads and has totalled £1,800m. since the end of the war,
There should, say the B.R.F., he no difficulties in obtaining labour, materials and equipment. Suitable plant and equipment costing £100m. is not now fully employed. A comprehensive programme of new road construction would need an increase of only 25,000 in the present labour force employed on road works, for now most
are technicians using machines. There are big contractors waiting to do the work, but they require continuity, which cannot be afforded by small and, varying annual grants.
The scheme is outlined in two B.R.F. booklets, " Loans for the Roads" and " Resources for the Roads." A third, "The Severn Bridge and the South Wales Road Plan," was specially produced for last Friday's conference in Cardiff of industrialists and local government officials.