Darling denies U-turn on road building
Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has rejected claims that Labour has done a U-turn on a pledge not to extend Britain’s road network.
Mr Darling drew criticism from environmental groups after he launched the Government £7bn road-building scheme yesterday, which aims to better manage congestion on Britain’s roads.
Environmental groups claim they were assured that the Government would not countenance extra road building as a way to ease Britain’s worsening congestion problems.
But Mr Darling told BBC Two’s Newsnight that the Government had little choice but to invest more money into the road network: “A year ago I was asked if I was prepared to endorse the building of a new set of motorways across the country and I said that I did not think that was either possible or desirable.
“But I have made it clear on many occasions that if you look at some of our motorway network built 30 or 40 years ago, it is now carrying traffic levels that are almost twice as much as they were designed for.”
He added: “Today, I actually turned down a large number of requests to build roads in the West Midlands and along the south coast, but what I am quite clear about is that there are sections of the motorway system on the M1, the M6 and M25 where we do need to expand capacity.
“I also made it clear that looking ahead over the next 20 to 30 years we do need to look at the feasibility of changing the way in which we charge for road use and having a more sensible way of managing demand on roads. That is why I announced the study into the feasibility of road building.”
Most of the three-lane sections of the M25 are to be widened to four lanes, and the M1 will also be widened to four lanes between the M25 and Milton Keynes.
Mr Darling announced expansion schemes on a number of roads including the A12, M11, M62, A1(M) and M18.
Spokesman for Friends of the Eart Roger Higman said plans to widen UK motorways would offer little more than a temporary respite in the fight against growing congestion.
“Yet again the Government is throwing billions of pounds in a futile gesture to widen the motorways to relieve congestion when all the evidence suggests that we get at least three years of congestion-free motoring and then the traffic builds up, and we have more pollution and congestion in the future.”
