Vanishing roads

20th September 1974, Page 146

20th September 1974

Page 146

Page 146, 20th September 1974 — Vanishing roads

Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

CANDIDATES in the coming election campaign are likely to give ambiguous answers to questions on roads and road construction. Advice from party headquarters will not help much. Mr Fred Mulley has already put the dilemma into words. "I am convinced," he said the other day, "that we need to continue to build new roads for both economic and environmental reasons. At the same time, for the same reasons, the cuts in the roads programme implemented in recent years are likely to be continued."

Votes are not won on the strength of statements that reasons for doing something are also reasons for not doing it. The electors want something more positive. A good deal may depend upon the answers they get, and it is as well for road users that the British Road Federation in a recent letter to the Prime Minister drew attention to the serious consequences of running down the road programme.

Politics are not what they were. Once upon a time candidates would have outbid each other with promises of more expenditure and more miles of road than their rivals. Now the situation is more reminiscent of a Dutch auction. The winner is the one offering the least.

By now this should cause no surprise. Developments under the last two or three governments fall into a pattern as depressing for road users as it is gratifying to, say, the organizations making up Transport 2000.

In 1970, during Mr Mulley's first term of office in the Transport Ministry, he set a target of 4,000 miles for a programme of strategic routes. The Conservative Government which followed was confident it could do better. By June 1971 Mr Peter Walker had reduced the figure to 3,500. Not to be outdone, Mr Mulley, on returning to his post this year, was able to announce that he had brought the total down to 3,100.

Estimates of expenditure confers the evidence of the vanishing roads. Much has happened in less than two years. It was in May 1973 that the Chancellor 'of the Exchequer earmarked £100 m of the road programme as part of a total reduction of £500 m in public expenditure during the year 1974-75. Last December the White Paper on Public Expenditure showed considerable reductions in the provision for roads over the next five years.

At about the same time the Chancellor announced reductions, with few exceptions, of 20 per cent in capital expenditure and 10 per cent in current expenditure in the programmes for 1974-75. Mr Mulley no doubt had further cuts in mind later this year when he announced last June that the trunk road programme in England would continue at "a reduced level in real terms".

As all the Governments have been following similar policies, it might be tempting providence to ask any candidate whether he could improve on the road-building record of his predecessor. An affirmative reply might merely constitute an undertaking to build less. Even more depressing to the road user would be an investigation into where what he might regard as "his" money has gone.

Mr John Peyton, the Conservative Minister, saw no reason for reticence. The reduction in road expenditure, he said, would finance a major investment programme for the railways. The White Paper following his statement said that the figure would rise to £225m in 1977-78. The railways would also receive substantial revenue support to plug their continuing operating losses.

The latter point is covered in the Labour Government's Railways Act. Social services are no longer distinguished from commercial services. Support needed over the whole field is estimated at £1,915 m over five years.

In addition, £198m worth of capital is being written off and consequently the payment of about £15 m interest on the sum each year. The investment programme, certainly no less than that promised by the Conservatives, will bring the grand total over five years to £3,000m, Conveniently forgotten or ignored in all this high-scale finance is the sum of well over £2,000 m which road users pay each year in special taxation. Some politicians and some economists, and of course the railways, deny that this revenue for the Chancellor should bear any relation to the amount that he doles out for the roads. The same people are prepared to say at the same time that users do not pay enough. They cannot have it both ways.

One person who will be looking the vehicles at Earls Court witl keen eye to vehicle safety is Mr I. Neilson, who has lately assumed r ponsibility for the vehicle safety di sion of the traffic and safety grour the Transport and Road Reseal Laboratory. In particular, he will c a critical eye on progress in c design and those features which', help to prevent under-run accidel Mr Neilson has been involved in aspects of vehicle safety since jo ing the TRRL in 1961. A matl matics graduate, his first cono was with the aircraft industry itl. after a spell with guided missiles became involved in research into1 practicalities of nuclear propulsi for marine applications.

During the past 16 years with 1 TRRL he has been concerned mail with the work of the vehicle saf4 division considering the design a use of safer cars, commerc vehicles and two-wheeled vehicli He has, however, also spent sou time investigating, in depth, ro accidents in an attempt to det mine exactly why they occur.

His experience suggests tI vehicle manufacturers have a n ponsibility to build their vehicles such a Way as to protect the dril and ensure better compatability w vehicles driven by other road use

What spare time he has he likes spend on family pursuits with I wife and two teenage childn Driving his own car, he says, he is f tremely vulnerable to criticism frc his own family by the very nature his job and this tends to ensure ti he does everything "by the book'