£15bn roads investment ‘good news’ for freight industry
The prime minister David Cameron used his speech at the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) annual conference in London on Monday to announce plans for £15 billion of road spending between now and 2020.
Mr Cameron said the investment: “could lead to an extra 100 schemes being undertaken on our roads.”
He added that the government was: “looking specifically at those pinch points, those problem areas, that businesses and people have talked to us about and told us are so essential – looking at areas like the A303; absolutely vital for the west of our country; looking at the A1 north of Newcastle, a really key road for that part of our country; looking at the A47 in the East of England, a high growth region that needs better transport links; looking at roads across the Pennines and a number of other schemes.
“So a big investment, only possible because we manage the nation’s finances effectively.”
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) said the plans were “good news for the freight and logistics industry”, adding that the investment would improve the strategic road network’s reliability and allow transport operators to continue to support the economy.
Malcolm Bingham, FTA’s head of road network management policy, said: “FTA is pleased to hear of the planned ‘roads revolution’ as such improvements have to be good news for all UK freight operators.
“Improved road reliability will help to ensure transport operators can provide an efficient service to their customers and will reduce the unnecessary costs associated with traffic jams.
“Such roads improvements will also assist the economies of those areas which are badly served by strategic transport infrastructure such as the trans-Pennine routes, the South West, Eastern and North East England. The combination of improved roads, rail and port connections are the lifeblood of this country and the need for improvement is well demonstrated.”
Bingham continued: “FTA believes that the UK’s roads networks have suffered from underfunding from successive governments. This is supported by our own research, in which FTA members reported a deterioration in the reliability of the road network compared with 12 months ago.
“With an almost 30 per cent decrease in reliability of the motorway network and over 40 per cent decrease in local authority roads performance, urgent investment is needed to improve journey reliability on major routes.”
The association said it awaited with interest the release of more detail regarding the exact type of infrastructure involved, which is expected to be outlined in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement.
