Highlights From The 2011 Conference
The Government launches £6m efficiency programme but is challenged by the CBI for having no strategic vision for the UK road network.
Speaking at the 2011 Highways Term Maintenance Association conference, Transport Minister Norman Baker declined to set a financial target for highways maintenance efficiency savings as he launched a new programme to help councils do more with the available money.
Baker said the DfT’s £6m highways maintenance efficiency programme would offer new toolkits, model contracts, standard specifications and case studies for local authorities to use if they wished. It is believed that if all highways authorities adopt the best practice on procurement and collaborative working up to £1bn could be saved.
Baker also said a new potholes initiatives would be launched and that he wanted ‘to address the causes as well as the symptoms’ to offer ‘long-term solution for a long-standing problem’. Interim findings of the potholes project will be ready by October.
Later in the conference agenda, the government was attacked by the CBI for not having a strategic vision for the UK road network. Dr. Neil Bentley, the business lobbying organisation’s Deputy Director General said investing in roads benefits the economy, underlining the significant return on investment for big infrastructure projects.
The strategic vision for our roads must start with a national policy statement on road and rail, and a full review of the Highways Agency. Dr. Bentley called on the government to unlock the full potential of private capital and innovative finance mechanisms, including tax-incremental financing (TIF) schemes, to support investment in our road network.
He commented: “Instead of a strategic vision, we have a policy of make do and mend. £200m of investment in tackling potholes is welcome and vital to fix roads up and down the country, but it will not deliver the network-wide improvements we need. The lack of vision is tying us to to a roads policy that is tentative, unplanned and – in the view of CBI members – consistently falling short.
Norman Baker’s Conference Address
