Dip to spend more cash on London's roads
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• London's local highway authorities will get more than £41 million next year (1988/89) to spend on improving key routes. The Department of Transport expects that the money will help fund more than 38 new road improvement schemes around the capital.
The extra cash is part of next year's Transport Supplementary Grant, which Secretary of Transport Paul Channon announced last week. The rest of Britain's 108 local highway authorities will get a 6% rise, giving them £191 million to spend on road schemes and traffic management.
Speaking in the House of Commons about next year's grants, Channon said: "I have considered carefully the transport policies and programmes submitted by each local highway authority, and have looked at the extent to which local authorities' programmes relate to more than local roads.
"Many smaller schemes on these heavily trafficked roads produce very significant accident savings and other benefits. I have therefore taken into account more than £59 million of expenditure on minor (under 21 million) schemes for grant in 1988/89, an increase of 7.3% on 1987/88."
0 Roads and Traffic Minister Peter Bottornley says 830 days of delay on Britain's motorways were avoided last year by the increasing use of lane rental contracts for repair schemes. During 1986/87, says Bottomley, 23 lane rental contracts were completed in two-thirds the time that could be expected.
Lane rental contracts were launched by the Dip in 1984 to encourage contractors to complete motorway and major trunk road repair schemes as quickly as possible by awarding them generous bonuses if they finish ahead of schedule. If contracts overrun, however, contractors are penalised.
0 A new £90 million section of the A406 North Circular Road was opened this week by Transport Secretary Paul Channon. The 9.6km road, from South Woodford, to Barking in east London, was finished four months early. It comprises mainly three-lane dual carriageway and links the North Circular into the M11, Al2, and A13.