Commenting on the Government Transport Investment Strategy
published to be published on Wednesday, Chris Richards, Head of
Business Environment Policy at EEF, the manufacturers’
organisation, said:
“Today's announcement reconfirming the creation of a VED-linked
Roads Fund, to be extended beyond the strategic road network with
local authority managed A-roads and funding available for
strategic local road maintenance, is significant. It is a major
victory for manufacturers seeing their growth impaired by poor
local road connectivity.
“Manufacturers consistently rate the UK's road network as their
highest priority for infrastructure investment with local roads,
long considered the Cinderella of infrastructure spend, cited as
deteriorating in quality the most. If this is backed up by action
it has the potential to reverse that trend.
“However beyond today's announcement there will need to be rapid
action to avoid the drift we've seen with other infrastructure
announcements. This must include legislation to give permanence
to the Roads Fund, the creation of Strategic Transport Bodies to
cover all of England to provide coordination on which local roads
are of strategic regional importance and clear timescales on when
these bodies will have access to the Roads Fund to repair and
upgrade local roads - England's most valuable infrastructure
asset.”
