CILT calls for new strategy and funding

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK (CILT) is calling on the Government to speed up its development of a proper high-level strategy and funding package for the country’s strategic roads network (SRN). The call follows the Government’s response to the Cook Report on the Highways Agency (HA) and its intention to publish the findings of its study into alternative funding and ownership models for the SRN, which is due in the autumn. The Institute welcomes the intention to develop a separate Road Strategy within the Government’s overall Transport Strategy, particularly the suggestion that the HA should be given output targets. CILT also recommends that a contingency is made for a sizeable expansion in tax-free electrically-powered vehicles and the likely fall-off in registration taxes and fuel duty revenues.

The Institute is urging the UK Government to consider international experience and best practice by looking much further ahead for the roads network than its current five year horizon. The long lead times in designing road improvements and obtaining planning approval mean that route strategies will need to look at demand growth over the next 20-30 years and the most efficient way of meeting it on each route. Steve Agg, chief executive of CILT, explained, “Businesses and households together spend £44 billion (US$69.9 billion) a year on vehicle purchase and contribute £38 billion (US$60.3 billion) in road user taxation to the Exchequer. The strategic road network is vital to the efficiency of transport and its contribution to economic growth. Developing a long-term strategy for our roads network and an appropriate funding package, as applies to rail, is long overdue. Ensuring the strategic road network is planned as part of an overall transport strategy is vital. So far there is no sign of this.”

4 September 2012