'Roads need £7bn' URBAN transport needs a E7 billion investment
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programme, says the British Road Federation. Otherwise, Britain's big cities will continue to decline, states its report — Room to Move published on Tuesday, writes JOHN DURRANT.
This large-scale plan, it argues, would: • Create living and working environments capable of attracting new industrial investment in competition with towns and cities in the European Community.
• And ensure an efficient infrastructure for industry and those who work on it.
"The achievement of both these objectives is vital if the United Kingdom and its principal urban areas are to achieve a worthwhile degree of sustained economic recovery and new job opportunities," commented BRF chairman Tony de Boer.
The document highlights urban transport needs by reference to experience in Clydeside, Tyne and Wear, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands and Cardiff. This followed consultations with the highway authorities involved.
Room to Move says the consequences of the Government's failure to carry through a capital spending programme are all too evident, The effects have been congestion, unreliable and unnecessarily expensive public transport, costly delays to goods movement, poor environment and restraint measures. Much can be achieved in the short term, says the report, by relatively modest changes in the controls exerted by the Government on local authority spending..
Among half a dozen specific points, the BRF suggests an increase in the level of local spending accepted for grant and removal of the directive which prevents councils spending more than half of their self-generated accrued capital income on new projects.
Greater use, it adds could be made of existing powers in the Local Government Planning and Land Act 1980 for the Transport Minister to direct the use of funds for important projects.
However, in the longer term, says the BRF, the Government must make more finance available for a transport capital spending. Also it needs to find new methods of raising money by, for example, attracting more private money into major projects.
Reductions in the cost of borrowing might also be used to encourage capital expenditure.
Possible means, it says, could include: removal of debt charges for from current expenditure targets; the issue of low zero or low coupon bonds; bonds whose interest payments are exempt from income tax; making Transport Supplementary Grant in England applicable to capital projects only.
Other measures which the BRF says could make a substantial contribution include: • The trunking of more roads in urban areas — as is proposed for London; • More flexibility in the use of land dedicated to transport (including under-used railway lines); • And ensuring that funds from the European Regional Development Fund are used for additional projects.
"Spending on public transport is not an alternative to spending on roads," says the report. "The two are complementary."
While the costs are high, it says, present plans are relatively modest compared to those of the early 1970s. They can no longer be put off.