Prescott pledges £180bn to 'get Britain moving'

Labour unveils its 10-year 'no frills' programme targeting pollution, traffic congestion and an ambitious expansion of the Tube

John Prescott pledged to "get Britain moving again" yesterday when he unveiled plans to invest £180bn in roads, rail and trams over the next 10 years. Three years after Labour was elected on a promise to transform public transport, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a cash bonanza aimed at cutting pollution and traffic jams.

John Prescott pledged to "get Britain moving again" yesterday when he unveiled plans to invest £180bn in roads, rail and trams over the next 10 years. Three years after Labour was elected on a promise to transform public transport, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a cash bonanza aimed at cutting pollution and traffic jams.

To disprove the Government was "anti-car", Mr Prescott pledged to widen motorways and build 100 bypasses across the country. There will also be more lorry and coach-only motorway lanes and variable speed limits on congested sections. New traffic lights on feeder roads will also "ration access" to motorways.

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, the transport minister, refused to rule out motorway tolls but indicated that they would not be considered seriously until the latter half of the plan. But proposals for "congestion charging" - levies on entering busy areas - were more advanced. Ministers estimate that such charges would raise £2.7bn during the decade, based on the assumption that the areas that have registered an interest press ahead with the schemes. They are London, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Derbyshire, Hampshire and Durham.

Some £60bn is to be spent reversing decades of under-investment and making the railway network "bigger, better and safer".

The proposals were attacked by the Tories, who said taxes would have to rise, and by environmentalists, who were scathing about the road-building programme.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, said his plans for a congestion charge and transport improvements had been scuppered by the Treasury's decision to delay funding for the capital.

Mr Prescott told the Commons that £123bn of public money would be allocated over the next decade, with plans to raise £56bn privately. Some 360 miles of motorway and trunk roads are to be widened. Planning will be speeded up so that road schemes are completed more quickly.

There will be 6,000 new railway carriages and an expansion of the network to allow for 50 per cent more passengers.

Up to 25 tram networks will be built in towns across the country, doubling the existing number. There will also be more park-and-ride schemes.

Mr Prescott said that decades of under-investment and the lack of strategic planning had left Britain with a transport system in crisis but the 10-year plan offered "new ideas, new powers, new resources - a new approach for a new century. This plan will get Britain moving and give the people of this country a transport system they can rely on," he said. The country was getting "no frills, no promises of a rosy, traffic-free future, just our best judgements based on detailed analysis of what the new resources will deliver."

The shadow transport minister, Bernard Jenkin, said £423bn would be taken from taxpayers over the 10 years, with extra taxes on the way on people who park at work or drive into town centres.

Mr Livingstone welcomed the £3.2bn transport budget for London but attacked a last-minute Treasury move to make him pay £104m for outstanding Jubilee Line bills.

The Mayor said such projects as the extension to the East London line, a new Wimbledon-Hackney Tube line, new east Thames river crossings and improvements of transport to Heathrow airport would have to be deferred. "It is tragic to have come so close and then to hear the Treasury have done a great doo-doo on the Mayor's doorstep," he said.

Motoring groups and rail companies were delighted by the extra investment and the Confederation of British Industry said the plan was "a monumental victory for the business community".

The policy director of the AA, John Dawson, said the targets for reducing congestion were "rightly ambitious". He said:"It's the sort of balanced package they've been used to in Europe for decades. The challenge now is to deliver the programme quickly enough for people to notice that the record motoring taxes they pay are finally being used to improve things."

However, the Council for Protection of Rural England and green groups claimed that the new bypasses would put huge pressure on the countryside. The environmental group Transport 2000 spoke of the Government "turning the clock back on roadbuilding to the Dark Ages".