Ringfenced investment for highways that has been promised from vehicle excise duty receipts beyond 2020 should be spread more widely to include routes covered by the newly conceived ‘Major Road Network’, delegates to the CIHT Annual Conference heard last week.

 

England’s Economic Heartland Strategic Alliance programme director and CIHT Trustee Martin Tugwell (pictured) said: “At the moment the Government proposal is that the ringfenced investment will be allocated to Highways England.

 

“I am not suggesting that we should not invest in Highways England’s network, rather that the fund is spent on a combination of strategic roads and significant local authority roads that make up the Major Road Network as they are both important for the economy.”

 

Martin Tugwell also spoke up for major infrastructure investment in the Oxford to Cambridge corridor and said that in the Heartland area it must be realised that the “economic agenda is not just a city agenda; the scale of growth in rural areas is just as large or larger than the scale of growth in many urban areas.”

 

Delegates also heard from Transport for London’s chief operating officer for surface transport Garrett Emmerson who said that in the early years of TfL “the focus was very much on public transport investment and it continues to be”. But he went on to say: “It is probably fair to say that road maintenance was neglected”.

 

He added that recent years have seen a “significant ramping up” of investment in the maintenance of roads and related structures, coupled with “sophisticated levels of asset management” so that money is spent effectively and is better prioritised.

 

“That is a challenge going forward as we enter tighter financial circumstances but it remains a priority for us and the Mayor to ensure that all of our road and public transport assets are maintained effectively,” he said. “Maintenance renewals are at the top of the hierarchy.”

 

Further reports from the CIHT Annual Conference will be available in the March and April issues of Transportation Professional.