The Department for Transport has unveiled £1bn for upgrades to strategic roads and rail services, which are ready to get under way by next year, as a key plank of the Government’s fiscal stimulus to the economy.

Chancellor, Alistair Darling, chose motorway and trunk road improvements as one of his main ‘timely, targeted and temporary’ projects he will plough an extra £3bn into during 2008/09 and 2009/10.

Transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, announced that the bulk of the £700M fiscal stimulus given to his department would be spent on roads, but only £100M to build new carriageway – dualling of the A46 between Newark and Widmerpool.

The remaining £300M would be invested in managed motorway schemes, which Hoon said would ‘make best use of our existing capacity’. The transport secretary emphasised the need for the most cost-effective solutions to rising traffic and emissions, and signalled that he would conclude in the new year ‘where hard shoulder running should be rolled out more widely’.

But, while the DfT said hard shoulder running was ‘on average, around 40% cheaper’ than construction, Hoon also announced a further £195M from the DfT’s existing budget for road improvements.

The £195M of new funding – and £60M for technology to tackle congestion on the A12 – was directed at schemes to unblock congested routes to UK airports and ports.

The transport secretary claimed ‘congestion is a tax on the productivity of our businesses’. The approach was in line with the recommendations of the Eddington review for the Treasury that emphasised the need to focus investment on ‘international gateways’ and other areas with the highest benefit-cost ratios.

However, it represented a significant policy shift by making a number of roads designated by the DfT as strategic roads of only ‘regional’ importance ‘national’ routes, including the A12 to the Felixstowe and Harwich ports.

By providing £174M in total from national budgets to widen the A46, about half the total cost, the DfT acknowledged that the East Midlands regional funding allocation could not cover both the £360M scheme and local transport schemes (Surveyor, 10 April).

Matthew Lugg, director of environmental services at Leicestershire County Council, said: ‘Our lobbying that this scheme is unaffordable within the regional funding allocations has been successful.
‘It will still take two years of the money but, without the extra £174M, it would have swallowed up four or five years.’

Brian Smith, president of the County Surveyors’ Society, while welcoming the additional money for strategic road and rail schemes, said: ‘I’m disappointed that the opportunity has been missed to invest in additional maintenance and other local schemes.

‘Both of these would have had economic benefits across the country, helping retain local employment.’ Instead, councils faced looming budget cuts, given Darling’s planned funding squeeze post-2010/11, he said.