Haynes angers road planners

Councils could play a greater role in transport planning, according to Transport secretary Brian Mawhinney.

In his sixth and last speech to launch the Great Transport Debate this week, Mawhinney suggested councils be given 'more influence over the roads which impinge on their communities.'

But the County Surveyors Society fears the Highways Agency is planning to do the opposite. This week it wrote to Highways Agency Lawrie Haynes to protest at his failure to include county councils in Highways Agency discussions with contractors about plans to open up the management and maintenance of trunk roads and motorways to competition. At present this is the responsibility of county councils.

To rub salt in the wound, last week county councils learnt, by way of an advert in the European Journal, that the Highways Agency is seeking consultants to take over all traffic data collection for trunk roads and motorways from the county councils.

Councils are hastily forming into consortias to bid for the work being let in regional packages.

'We are concerned that we have not been informed about either of these developments. We have written to Lawrie Haynes to ask for a meeting with him to discuss these policy changes,' said Tommy Thomson, CSS vice president.