Lib Dem transport plan: 8p a kilometre, please

If you pay attention to the doomsayers - and in this miserable world of ours, doomsayers are often the ones you should be paying attention to - you'll know that the transport system in Britain is destined to collapse, and that those childhood dreams of cruising around on hoverboards will soon be replaced by the crushing reality of having to walk everywhere.

The Liberal Democrats realise this, and they've taken up the issue with aplomb, devising a number of radical ideas that will hopefully see a 'renaissance' in the railway network. Now all they have to do is persuade the public to vote for them...

Nick Clegg and company plan on cutting fuel duties - prediction: popular notion - but charging drivers to use motorways at the rate of 8p per kilometre for bog-standard vehicles and 12p for real gas-guzzlers - prediction: unpopular notion. Most voter-unfriendly dangerous ground of all? The proposal to lay charges on truck drivers dependent on how much fuel they eat up. Hasn't Clegg been watching the news?

The Lib Dems would also hope to include surcharges on domestic flights, which would then be pumped back into the rail system in an attempt to "undo some of what Beeching did in the 1960s". The Libs Environment Spokesman Norman Baker defended the potential schemes, claiming:

"Labour's 30-year plan for the railways stops inexplicably in 2014 and there are no firm proposals from the Conservatives. We are the only party with concrete proposals to build a transport system fit for the 21st century."

It's just a shame that - bar a seismic shifting of the political landscape unseen for decades - the Lib Dems probably won't get a chance to implement them.

Written by C J Davies on 3 Jun 2008 11:35 PM. Permalink