CBI – ‘Another decade of transport misery’
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is warning that Britain could face ‘another decade of transport misery’ if the Government does not restore faith in its Ten-Year Transport Plan.
The CBI published a report today that claims the Government’s transport plan is failing to solve the problem of congestion and the confederation’s membership ‘have become increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress’ made in tackling the issues.
The CBI’s Director-General, Digby Jones warned that the Government must reinforce its commitment to the transport plan during its review this summer. Mr Jones warned that abandoning the plan would ‘sentence users to another decade of transport misery’.
Mr Jones commented, ‘To be globally competitive and to become more productive UK business needs to get its goods to market and people to work. Some projects have been completed but the perception is that they have made little difference to the daily experience of most transport users.’
The employers’ federation wants to see the better management of road incidents (responsible for 25 per cent of congestion), better use of rail capacity and a concentration on short-term projects that would ‘make a real difference to transport users’.
The CBI’s report called for the Government to tackle inconsistent progress with local transport plans as the report highlighted that only half of local authorities are confident their plans are on track.
Mr Jones stated, ‘The Government must overcome its credibility problem on delivery by acting quickly and decisively to deliver schemes that can make a noticeable difference to users. That means better management of what we have and the speeding up of schemes in the pipeline. For the longer term, the government must take tough decisions on major projects, future funding and the role of road user charging.’
The CBI also called on the Government to reduce the time taken for Ministers to make decisions on major projects and commit to reducing the growth in road congestion by 2015 and reducing the absolute level after that.
