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Roads versus public transport

Government reviews road building

The Government has announced a major review of the country's road building programme, and said speedy decisions on the future of 12 key road building schemes would be taken. There would also be a fundamental review of all spending on roads. Transport Minister Gavin Strang said that he would be looking at new ways to pay for roads that did not increase public spending and would be looking at tolls, and road pricing in city centres.

Mr Strang told MPs that the aim was to find out which roads should become part of the Government's integrated transport policy, taking account of the environmental impact and other forms of transport which may become available.

Decisions on these 12 schemes will be made within the next month, including the Birmingham Northern Relief Road, M25 Junctions 12 to 15, and the M62E/M606 Link Roads.

building
Road building: On hold

Limit on roads money

Mr Strang told MPs: "There are 12 cases on which urgent decisions are pending. We therefore propose to carry out an accelerated review of these cases against the criteria of accessibility, safety, economy and environmental impact, and announce our decisions on them in July. It may be that in some of these cases we decide in July that a decision cannot be taken in advance of the main review. In the majority of cases we will take a decision either to take the scheme forward or to abandon it."

Dr Strang's announcement follows the Government's manifesto pledges to introduce an integrated transport policy and persuade motorists to switch to buses, trains, bicycles and other forms of transport. Dr Strang told journalists there was a limit to the amount of taxpayers' money that could be found for new roads.

He said that ministers were looking at the possibility of a "dedicated income stream" for public transport. He added that there was now a consensus in the country that people should use their cars less. But the way to achieve that was to provide a public transport alternative that people found convenient and wanted to use. This was a real challenge for the next five to 10 years.

Public consultation

strang
Strang: Consultaton
He stressed no decision has yet been made on the 12 road schemes in the accelerated review, but they amounted to over £1 billion in spending. "During the next few weeks, my department will be consulting key representative bodies both about the range of issues which needs to be covered and how we might involve them effectively in the review. We then intend to launch a public consultation in July, inviting responses by the end of October."

The scrapping of several major big road projects could be announced as part of the Government's new transport policy. Labour's vision for the future is being set out by the Transport Minister, Glenda Jackson.



Diana, Princess of Wales, 1961-1997

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