Anger mounts over Tory threat to roadbuilding
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• Trade associations have reacted angrily to suggestions that the Government might suspend new roadbuilding projects in the Budget to fund tax cuts.
"It will be bad news for business, bad news for jobs and bad news for the environment," says Paul Everitt of the British Road Federation.
The Freight Transport Association says: The problem is that we haven't a proper funding stream for the road system. We need some means of preserving the integrity of funding for road building, improvement and maintenance."
Shadow Transport Secretary Clare Short condemns "the corn plete chaos at the heart of the Government's transport policy". Road Haulage Association director-general Bryan Colley believes that the 1989 "Roads For Prosperity" White Paper has "been consigned to the policy incinerator which is being fuelled by Government electoral vulnerability".
0 An AA-commissioned study by Cambridge Professor David Newbery calls for a complete overhaul of the UK's system of motoring taxation. Newbery argues that a mix of taxation and direct charges could fund road improvements and environmental projects directly, without increasing overall costs.