£20bn plan signals shift in roads policy - £20bn plan signals shift in roads policy

Exclusive by Carol Millett

The Government is to announce a £20bn 10-year strategic plan for roads this summer that will include a major motorway widening and improvement programme and the resurrection of a host of bypass schemes.

The move marks a major shift in the Government's roads policy, which just three years ago saw the decimation of the roads programme and a virtual moratorium on privately financed motorway construction.

The 10-year strategic plan is being put together by transport minister Gus MacDonald and will be announced in tandem with the Government's three-year spending review in July. The policy shift is partly an attempt to remove the public perception that the Government is "anti-car".

It is also a recognition that the Government's integrated transport policy cannot work without some new road building and widening.

But ministers are determined to avoid a revival of the road protestors movement which the Conservative Government's roads programme sparked throughout the 1990s.

All new-build and motorway widening schemes are being carefully selected and planned to ensure the minimum environmental impact and all bypass schemes have been vetted to ensure they have the support of the majority of the local community.

"What they (Government) don't want to invoke is a repeat of Twyford Down where middle class, middle England voters occupied road building sites hand-in-hand with the likes of Swampy. But what they do want is to convince the public they are not anti-car and that they are tackling congestion," said one transport consultant.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) will play a major role in the 10-year strategic plan, as will long-term partnering contracts for major improvement works.

Super agency term maintenance contracts are also being overhauled with the majority being relet over the next three years as Managing Agent Contractor contracts which will run for between five and seven years and include demanding performance criteria on congestion and accident reduction targets (see page 2).

Local authorities are to be given greater powers to harness the power of the private sector to deliver new roads, road improvements and road maintenance to relieve congestion. Local authorities will also be allowed to hypothecate revenues from congestion charging to improve local roads.

The British Road Federation welcomed the Government's plans this week. Chief executive Richard Diment said: "If the Government is going to deliver a transport system to rival Europe's best, as Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has promised us in the past, then it needs to provide new bypasses, widen motorways and remove congestion blackspots."

But the Civil Engineering Contractors Association sounded a note of caution. A spokesman said: "Our members look forward to being able to engineer out as much congestion as they can. But when will all this work come through? We have had numerous Government announcements in the recent past on the need for more road improvements but we have yet to see any of it turn into real work."