Hauliers have rejected suggestions of tolls to be implemented on new roads.
Prime Minister David Cameron has raised the idea of using private investment as an alternative suggestion when speaking at the Institute of Civil Engineering.
The Chief Executive of the Road Haulage Association Geoff Dunning said “We have an economy and a workforce that is desperately trying to recover from several years of extreme hardship. To hear that there are proposals on the table to take yet more money out of the pockets of motorists and hauliers is ludicrous and would do no more than put the economy back on its knees.”
He went on to say “While we welcome the acknowledgment that the UK road transport infrastructure needs to see major investment, we consider the proposal of introducing tolls on new roads to be quite unthinkable.” In the 2010/2011 tax year over £48 billion was collected from road years and just £10 billion was used to improve and maintain the current network.
Dunning argued that fuel prices were a priority “Unless we see the issue of fuel prices and fuel duty addressed as a matter of extreme urgency, the chances of traffic levels returning to the levels that reflect economic growth will be slim”.
At present the UK only has one privately operated toll road, the M6 Toll. Between October and December 2011 the average daily traffic figure was 34,286, this was down by almost 11% on the previous year. For a commercial vehicle to use the 27 mile route at peak time it costs £11.
The Freight Transport Association has said it recognises the value of private investment on the road network but warned any new costs should not be additional to current taxes and charges.