Transport

This has not been a good week for transport in Britain, and it is not only because a British Airways jet crashed at Heathrow. Not a day goes by without our roads, rails and airports being stretched beyond their intended capacity.

According to Towards Better Transport, traffic congestion is now endemic, affecting not just large cities but also the core motorway network and small towns. It currently costs the UK economy in the region of £20bn per year, a figure set to rise significantly in the coming years, harming our future economic competitiveness and growth.

Britain’s transport infrastructure is, quite simply, not fit for purpose. Heathrow, as the nation’s most important air travel hub, can only be described as inadequate. While all other major European airports have increased their capacity, it took more than two decades just to plan the new Terminal five and a third runway is nowhere in sight.

Ground transport on Britain’s roads and rails is equally substandard. In no other European country can one find fewer roads per person. On average, for every Briton there are six metres of road. Even in the much more densely populated Netherlands, and in Japan, they have seven and nine metres per person respectively.