A free-running road network could save the UK £10 billion a
Page 50
Page 51
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
year, according to the British Road Federation (BRF). Unfortunately that goal is now further off than ever following the Government's review of road building projects.
Of the 371 schemes that were originally planned, 118 have been scrapped or suspended indefinitely. With the Depai tment of Transport forecasting that traffic will rise by up to 106% by 2025, traffic congestion seems bound to get worse.
Highest priority
But although the programme has been scaled down, Transport Secretary John MacGregor claims that essential bypasses and motorway widening schemes will be built faster than before because resources will he concentrated on the highest priority schemes. He adds that the review is part of a broader based strategy to make better use of the existing road system, encouraging more environmentally friendly transport and reducing people's need to travel.
It's all viewed with scepticism by leaders of the road transport industry, who argue that MacGregor has simply succumbed to Treasury spending constraints and pressure from environmentalists.
BRF director Richard Diment says: "In 1989 we were told Roads for Prosperity was a 10-year programme. Now we are being offered a smaller programme with a longer timetable."
Don McIntyre, the Freight Transport Association's controller for highways and traffic, says FTA members feel particularly let down. "There is a curious irrationality about all of this when the 1989 programme was presented as an absolute minimum," he says. "What faith can we even have even in the revised programme because there's nothing to stop the Government from having another review."
He warns that because industry needs to plan years in advance, its task is being made more difficult by growing doubts about future mad projects.
The BRF has analysed the impact of the revised programme and says that only a third of the 48 schemes which directly benefit ports have been given top-priority status— and ports in the North-East, East Anglia, the South and South-West have all been deprived of important schemes. This is despite the fact that commercial vehicles carry 46 million tonnes of goods a year through British ports to Europe, making access to them of vital national importance.
One of the schemes abandoned in the review involved extending the M27 along the A31 to Ringwood on the edge of the New Forest. For John Kent, general manager of Poole-based haulier HJ Cutler, this came as a particular disappointment because 95% of his lorry journeys go along this route and journey times increase considerably during the summer, particularly on Fridays and Bank Holidays.
The journey from the edge of London can take anything up to an hour and a half extra because of traffic jams,' he says. "As a result I have to spend a lot more time on vehicles and labour and that inevitably affects our competitiveness."
Another casualty is the proposed M12 from the M25 to Chelmsford in Essex which is to be replaced with improvements to the Al2. According to David Quy, UK transport director of freight forwarder Davies Turner, congestion on this route frequently adds up to half an hour to the two hour journey between his company's Dartford base and Felixstowe.
The BRF analysis shows East Anglia has been hit particularly hard by the review. Road schemes to be scrapped or postponed include dualling the A47 between Norwich and Peterborough, the Al2 between Saxmundham and Lowestoft and the A10 between Cambridge and Ely.
Barry Kybird, transport planner with Continental Freeze in Felixstowe, says making deliveries in the region is "murderous hard work" because the existing roads are so antiquated: You have to go through a lot of small villages which is unpleasant for the people living there but there is just no alternative."
He says the contrast with roads in northern Europe is enormous: "Holland is a small country like ours but you can get off the boat and hardly have to change gear to get to where you want" Disappointment is not confined to areas which have seen important road schemes scrapped or postponed. The Midlands fared relatively well from the roads review with the Birmingham northern relief road, the western orbital route around the Black Country and widening of the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester all given toppriority status.
More problems
Tom Bell, managing director, of TNT Express Delivery Services, says the fact that the northern relief road will be tolled may cause more problems than it solves: "You only have to look at the toll roads in France to see that they are nearly always empty."
He says there are three main hlackspots in the motorway network: the M6 around Manchester, the M6 in the West Midlands and the M25. And he warns: "Not nearly enough is being done to improve any of them. Our journeys have got longer year on year, largely due to more roadworks that are taking place during the hours of darkness. These days you can often get three to five mile tailbacks on the motorway at one or two o'clock in the morning" Bell adds that the four-hour journey from the Scottish border to TNT's headquarters in Atherstone, Warwicks has increased by around 20 minutes in the past two years.
Long-term business planning is one of the main casualties of the review, according to John Towriss, a director of studies at Cranfield University's Institute of Logistics aid Transportation.
Towriss believes the climate of uncertainty has been accentuated by the Department of Transport's changing policy towards private funding of motorways and motorway tolls.
'Both ideas were prophesied and then died a death and now we're back at square one again," he says. "This can't be good for people who are planning business" He doubts if there will be any big road building programme over the next five years because of lack of enthusiasm from the private sector and the growth in the environmental lobby: "It has been growing steadily for several years and has become more confident as a political force," he says.
One response to this threat has been a demand for a more vocal campaign in support of road building programmes since MacGregor announced the review at the end of March.
In a speech last month to the Road Haulage Association, the BRF's Diment called on members to stand up and be counted: "If the industry wants to see improvement to the network then it must shout loud," he said. "Too often, when vital improvement schemes go to public inquiry, the only voices heard are the objectors."
The FTA's McIntyre agrees there is a need to put the case for a better road system more positively and aggressively: "We recognise the need to be more pro-active," he says. "We have to take the arguments to the environmentalists."
As a first step the FTA is about to publish a list of 30 road building schemes which it regards as vital to the national economy. It is a campaign that every road haulier should support.
E by Guy Sheppard