Motorists face more road tolls under the biggest shake-up of Britain’s motorways for 40 years.
Ministers will today announce plans to spend billions improving roads and easing congestion, promising to spend £28billion over six years.
But the plans also set out the first steps towards the full-scale privatisation of highways and open the floodgates for toll roads.
In the long-term, private companies could be given the opportunity to run highways – or large sections of them – like utility companies, the plans suggest.
Upgrades to existing roads could involve the introductions of tolls – such as in the case of the £1.5billion upgrade of the A14, which will include a new toll road between Huntingdon and Cambridge.
The AA said yesterday that this plan could represent a ‘Trojan Horse’ leading to future road improvements being routinely funded by punishing tolls on the motorist.
Mr Cameron has commissioned a report into alternative forms of road funding, including handing the roads over to private firms and introducing tolls to fund new roads, lanes or significantly improved existing highways.
Originally ministers suggested only new lanes that were added could be tolled.
But now they say whole roads can be tolled if they are ‘substantially’ improved.
Whitehall sources said there were no plans for a national unified pay-as-you drive tolling system.
But where roads are substantially improved, tolls would be levied, they said.
Top lane: The plans, which promises £28bn spending, also set out the first steps towards the full-scale privatisation of highways and open the floodgates for toll roads‘People are more receptive to the idea that where you have a new road – or substantially improve it so that it bears no relation to what went before – you can toll it to pay for the improvements,’ a source said.
‘It’s a balanced view. It’s on the table. There’s no u-turn.’
A detailed timetable of the investment are set out today in a ‘command paper’ called ‘Action for Roads’ setting out a detailed timetable.
The budget plans includes enough money to fill 19 million potholes every year, resurface a total of 21,000 miles of highways, add two lanes to the busiest motorways and ease congestion on the busiest junctions in the UK.
To reduce blockages there will also be investment in 221 miles of so-called ‘managed motorways’ – such as the M42 near Birmingham – where each lane is controlled by variable speed limits and enforced by speed cameras, with hard-shoulder running allowed at peak times.
Yesterday’s paper also creates a new role for a ‘motorists’ champion’ watchdog to represent the interests of motorists under the new system of managing the nation’s motorways and main roads.
The new ‘motorists’ champion’ will survey motorists, gather their views and act as a focus for concerns or complaints.
The champion will also monitoring performance of road building and improvements in a bid to end the era of eternal roadworks and cones.
Ministers hailed it as the ‘biggest investment in our roads in 40 years’.
Undercover cost: The AA called the possible introduction of tolls on more highways could represent a ¿Trojan Horse¿ where improvements are funded through toll feesTransport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said it would ‘bring an end to the short-term thinking that has blighted investment in England’s roads’ adding: ‘It will give us a road network fit for the 21st century and beyond.’
But AA president Edmund King said the Government’s restructuring of the Highways Agency was a first step towards creating a more radical ‘privatised’ road network, on which tolls could be levied.
Mr King said: ‘It is one small but significant step on the road to privatisation the nation’s highways.
‘They are teeing up the Highways Agency for future privatisation. Politically it’s too sensitive at the moment.
‘But they are putting in place a structure which, in the future, could be easily sold off to the private sector to bring in more investment in roads, and get them off the Government’s books. This half-way house is a safer option, politically, at the moment.’
As a first step down the road of private sector financing, the Government’s Highways Agency – currently restricted in its operations by Civil Service rules and regulations – is being transformed into a more independent but publicly owned company with funding for six years ahead.
It was swiftly dubbed ‘Network Roads’ after ministers said it had been modelled on Network Rail to create ‘A national road network fit for the 21st century.
The changes will allow it to manage the network with greater commercial freedom – saving up to £600m by 2020/21- and end ‘stop-go’ funding and uncertainty.
The Government is to consult on these proposals in Autumn 2013 and bring forward legislation in 2014 in time to implement the changes by April 2015 – just ahead of the next General Election.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: ‘Our major roads are vital to the prosperity of our nation, connecting people to jobs and businesses to markets. They carry a third of all traffic and two thirds of all freight traffic but in recent decades we have failed to invest properly in them.
‘That underinvestment has seen us fall behind many of our economic competitors. ‘
Since 1990 France has built 2,700 miles of motorway – ‘more than exist on our entire network’.
Between 2001 and 2009 the UK built just 46miles of new motorway. Canada, Japan and Australia all spend four times more on their roads than we do, he said.
