Roads get the green light, but there may be . . . - Hold-ups on the way

Amid accusations of passing the buck over many trunk road proposals, the Government last week pushed ahead with its vision for England's transport system by emphasising integrated networks.

Roads may be crucial to the success of its new transport game but they are not the solution and will only play bit-parts from now on, according to the environmental drum-banging by ministers.

Maybe the desire to shout a new transport message is why only 37 schemes out of nearly 150 survived being put through the mill in the Government's Roads Review - despite the possibility that another 7 could be approved and 44 more may be cleared for construction over the next few years by regional transport planners.

After a year of poring over the plans, only 21 of the proposed trunk roads have been dropped from the construction programme for England by Government officials. But that, of course, is not how it came across.

For a Government heavily interested in how its policies and decisons are portrayed, it might have seemed too roads-friendly to be seen giving the provisional green light to about 100 trunk roads in total (those announced, those passed to the regions, and those 11 passed in last year's accelerated review) - especially when trying to push the message of more investment in rail and integrated transport. Better then that the regions deal with 44 of the roads, approving or dropping them well away from the national spotlight.

regional

That, of course, would not be the whole story. Being more generous, the 44 projects would be good meat for the new regional planners to chew on; inheriting an agenda decided by Government is not a good way to begin a life of local decision-making. And maybe that is another reason why the findings of the Roads Review were announced before, it appears, they were complete.

Further evidence to suggest the Review is incomplete lies in appraisal work continuing on seven trunk roads. The verdicts on their fate will - as for the 37 surviving projects - come from Government bodies, not the regions.

While the Government's big idea is clear, the detailed message on roads is incomplete and confused as well as frustrating and disappointing for many in construction. But it is not unexpected. The Government has its eye on the transport big picture and last week it was keen to round off a whammy of initiatives as the Prime Minister led a cheery annual review of Labour's delivery against election promises and just before Parliament went into recess: the arguably incomplete roads findings were finally revealed only a few hours before the MPs went on holiday on Friday, although some allowance must be made for delays caused by the change of transport ministers last week.

Following a fast-track turnaround the new incumbent, John Reid, held sway on his new turf in Parliament to the clear enjoyment of Prescott even though his predeccesor - Gavin Strang - had his name on the Government report: A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England.

Despite the Government's approval of only 37 trunk road so far, many more could be on the way - eventually. While a greater road construction workload than is apparent at present may come, industry representatives say that timing is a problem.

Reid boasts that, unlike the Conservative governments, his plans are realistic and achievable - not "wish-lists" which fool and frustrate by building false hopes and expectations. However, to a hungry construction sector his plan for the 37 projects starting sometime within the next seven years is frustrating.

There might be more jam for the industry, including more than £450 million being spent on roads, but the jam from the trunk roads is spread thinly and now controlled by a host of new clients - Highways Agency will no longer run the show (See box: Remodelling the Highways Agency). Planning a cohesive business strategy to encompass the roads sector is difficult under such conditions.

strategies

Commercial pressures may finally push contractors off their roads agenda - into thinking of business strategies, deals with each other and about attempts to seize the opportunities offered by wider transport and maintenance needs. More creative, strategic thinking is needed to be able to work in the new transport climate - and, still burning with the zeal for his Construction Task Force, Prescott repeated last week that he wants to see better ideas and performance from the construction industry.

One of the up-and-coming ideas that Government is playing with is to have some tolled roads as well as raising money for network maintenance by the HA charging road users - which will help address the planned 20 per cent increase in spending by 2001-2. However, although it loves the idea of tolls, the Government would not say which roads are to be tolled because it is waiting on business proposals from industry.

Other new ideas included in the Reid/Prescott goody-bag include an unusual move to ring-fence funds for small road safety projects. The sum is only £50 million, initially, but is a useful, practical step.

While Government waits on industry to come up with ideas over the next seven years for the various trunk road projects, it does not plan to wait for the M25 congestion problems to get worse. On its western side, one stretch will be widened by two lanes in each direction, another by one lane in each direction. Except for the desperate M25 problem, the new roads policy is the death-knell for building roads simply to meet forecast demand. If built at all in the age of integrated transport, the roads of the future will only be wanted if they pass a multi-category assessment and improve the performance of the national transport jigsaw.