Cash promise?

摘要

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has said that 10 years from now Britain will have a transport system as good as the best in Europe. Civil servants are working to prepare the necessary plans by mid-year. It is a tall order to make up for decades of under investment in the transport infrastructure in ten years and to put together the necessary plans in just six months, but if the Government is serious it can be delivered. The package will involve investment in the maintenance and improvement of all parts of the transport infrastructure but as the recently published DETR report Tackling Congestion and Pollution shows the road system must be a major part of the 10-year investment programme. Ministers have spoken of "stepping up a gear" in road investment. The early signs are promising. The settlement for local transport expenditure announced just before Christmas saw funding approved for 18 major road scheme starts in 2000/01, compared with just two in 1999/2000. On 3 February the DETR announced that the Highways Agency would start work on 13 schemes from its Targeted Programme of Improvements rather than the seven that had originally been announced.