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Road funding must Increase - MPs

MPs have said there needs to be a big increase in Government funding for England's major road network if traffic forecasts are correct. But any move towards using road charging to pay for the extra funding would need a consensus, said the House of Commons Transport Committee. In a report the committee added that it was "not convinced" by the case for establishing the Highways Agency, the body responsible for England's motorways and major A-roads, as a Government-owned company.

Motoring groups generally welcomed the report but the Campaign for Better Transport said there was "a need to replace the dash for tarmac with co-ordinated decisions bringing together road, rail and local transport".

The report - Improving England's Strategic Road Network (SRN) - said Government investment in England's major roads would need to increase "substantially" during the next decade if traffic forecasts are correct. With income from fuel duty likely to decline due to the increase in greener vehicles, investment in roads will "require new funding streams", the MPs added. Such a challenge must be addressed, said the committee, but it added that a consensus would be required if any charging scheme was introduced for major roads.

"Many issues would have to be resolved", the MPs concluded.

Launching the report, the committee's chairman Louise Ellman said: "The SRN is a crucial part of our national transport system but has suffered from inconsistent funding and policy over the past 20 years.

"If the traffic forecasts are correct, then government will need to increase investment in the road network substantially over the next decade - a period when we also know that tax revenues from fuel duty are bound to decline as vehicles become more fuel efficient.

"Against that backdrop the committee is calling on all relevant stakeholders to build a new cross-party consensus around how to raise the money required to modernise the UK's road network." The committee also published another report on the policy for national networks.

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