RAC welcomes Budget boost for future road investment

Motorists and businesses will benefit from a £30 billion investment package to enhance the country’s transport network, the Chancellor is expected to announce in Monday’s Budget.

RAC chief engineer David Bizley said: “This is good news for the nation’s motorists. The Government made a commitment three years ago to ring-fencing all the money collected from vehicle tax from 2020/21 to maintain and improve our most important roads. It is good to see the Chancellor delivering on this promise and it is clearly a big step in the right direction.

“While the focus of this cash injection is strategic and major roads it is also positive that other local roads will benefit to some extent. But what is also needed going forward is a similar long-term strategy and funding for the maintenance and improvement of all local roads so that we can over perhaps 10 years eliminate the backlog in preventative maintenance that has led to so many potholes appearing during periods of adverse weather. Local roads are vitally important as almost all journeys start and finish on them and they, in turn, provide links to and from motorways, dual carriageway and major A-roads – keeping the country and our economy moving.”

The total funding includes:

• The National Roads Fund: £28.8 billion funded from vehicle excise duty between 2020 and 2025, which includes the Roads Investment Strategy 2 (£25.3 billion) and £3.5 billion for major local routes. This builds on the Roads Investment Strategy 1 (£17.6 billion) between 2015-2020
• Local road maintenance: £420 million in 2018/19
• Addressing local congestion hotspots: £75 million in 2021/22 and £75 million in 2022/23
• Transforming cities fund: £680 million in 2022/23
• Future Mobility Zones: £90 million between 2019/20 and 2021/22