The government's road building plans will continue to be "at the mercy of external pressures from the Treasury", claims the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA). The statement comes in the wake of the Highways Agency's (HA) 2008-09 business plan - Creating a more sustainable, reliable and safer road network - which outlines a strategy for completion of 15 major road schemes in the next year, including widening the M1 between J6a and J10.
It also proposes to award the 30-year
private finance contract - worth more than £5bn - to design, build, finance and operate more than 63 miles of the M25. Phil Morgan, head of external and public affairs at CECA, says his organisation supports the new system adopted by the HA for road-building projects that separates the three phases of a scheme's life cycle, each with clearly defined scope and budgets.
He adds: "However, it is clear that final approval of a project's progress towards construction will continue to require sanction from the secretary of state and this suggests that overall budgets will continue to be at the mercy of external pressures from the Treasury."
Reed Business Information Limited.©2009
