Plans to privatise motorway network

Motoring experts are calling on the government to consider selling-off the UK's motorway network to raise £85bn

The proposal forms part of a report by the RAC Foundation which calls for a shake up of how motorways and trunk roads are maintained and financed.

Full privatisation of the Highways Agency is one of a number of options proposed by the Foundation as the government's road building programme comes under pressure.

Privatising the Agency, which is responsible for Britain's major road network, could raise £85bn, if it was sold off in full.

As a private company, it would operate on a similar basis to major utilities.

An alternative would be to hive the Agency off and allow it to operate on a similar basis to Network Rail, a private company which is underpinned with public funding.

The RAC blueprint would see motorists paying tolls to use the motorways, or the independent agency would receive a proportion of the money raised from vehicle excise or fuel duty.

An independent or privatised Highways Agency would be subject to supervision by a regulator, as is the case with the water, communications and electricity industries.

Stephen Glaister, the Foundation's director, told the Daily Telegraph: "The basic starting point is that government will not have the cash to pay for improving infrastructure."

The Foundation's intervention comes a week after Reform, a free market think tank, also called for the injection of private cash into the motorway network.

It said the roads network had the potential to be "highly profitable" and advocated leasing sections of roads to investors who would use the toll income to pay for maintenance.