Yesterday Government plans to tackle congestion were revealed and it didn’t include road pricing. Instead the plans aim to tackle the huge problem of road works overruns, proposing to increase fines on construction and utility companies that overrun to £25,000 a day. This is a tenfold increase from the current £2,500 daily fine.
This proposal is very encouraging for drivers as it does not push the problem of road congestion entirely on them. The problem of road congestion has, in the past, been used to justify increasing duty, charges and taxes on drivers. These proposals rightly identify construction and utility company overruns as being extremely detrimental to the roads running smoothly. The Transport Minister Sadiq Khan stated that problem road works ‘cost our economy £4.2 billion each year.’
The maximum charge of £25,000 is only applicable on roads deemed to be ‘traffic sensitive’ by councils. This qualification will hopefully identify the overruns that come at the biggest economic cost, alleviating delays on roads that already experience large amounts of traffic.