Ladies and gentlemen – distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me here today. It’s a genuine pleasure to be part of an event that celebrates achievement in the highways industry.

Eight years ago I sat in the audience of an awards ceremony wondering if the team I was a part of had won. It was at the Local Government Chronicle, ‘Council of the Year’ awards and the celebrity in attendance that night was Maureen Lipman, someone who is considerably funnier and easier on the eye than me.

But more of that later…

However, as I recall, Maureen Lipman didn’t have a lot to say about investment in transport infrastructure on that particular occasion. So I intend to make up for that omission by taking this opportunity to remind you that this Government remains committed to investing our transport networks.

The evidence for this comes from the £40 billion we’re spending over the current three year period. It is a level of funding, which is at its highest as a proportion of national income for some thirty years.

Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future

But although we still have to meet the demands placed on our transport networks, the agenda has changed. One of the biggest challenges we all face is the need to combat the threat of climate change. And the Climate Change Act seeks to cut our CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050.

The UK government is the first to commit to legally enforceable targets for carbon. With greenhouse gas emissions from transport adding over 20% of total UK domestic emissions, de-carbonising transport is a key priority. And earlier this year, the Department published “Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future”.

This demands we not only assess and address transport need; but do so in a sustainable way. That entails developing robust, safe and economically effective transport networks while minimising the environmental and social costs. 

Electric cars

But this doesn’t mean Government dictating which particular mode of travel people should use. We’re certainly not anti-car for example. Instead we’d like motorists and businesses to embrace cleaner and greener vehicles because the choice is there.

But right now, the reality we face is that electric and plug-in hybrid cars are not yet available in significant numbers nor is the infrastructure there to support them.

However, the first generation of odd looking and poor performing electric cars is now being replaced by cutting edge prototypes and ultimately mass market models. 

Recently I had a chance to experience the Vauxhall Ampera, not only a practical and efficient electric car, but one with incredibly slick and aerodynamic styling that is guaranteed to generate interest.

To help deliver a green motoring transformation we’ve proposed an incentive of up to £5,000 for private individuals and businesses to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars when they hit the showrooms – which we expect to be from 2011 onwards.

And to make ultra-low carbon vehicles a real and viable option in the future, we’ve also allocated £30 million of seed money to the ‘Plugged In Places’ electric vehicle infrastructure scheme.

We’re also using the purchasing power of the public sector to encourage the development and take up of the latest generation of low carbon vehicles. As part of a £20 million Low Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme, four British companies have been selected to supply all-electric vans to selected public sector organisations within months.

Managed motorways

In my own area of transport policy, which is national networks, we’re now considering the implications of investing in sustainable infrastructure.
 
This entails re-evaluating major infrastructure projects like building new motorways, which come at an unacceptable cost to the taxpayer and the environment.

Although road traffic has declined recently, we expect it to grow again as economic conditions improve. And our “Managed Motorway” initiative will deal with this increasing pressure by tackling congestion head on.

We’ve taken the successes gained from our trial of hard shoulder running and active traffic management on the M42 and are now rolling them out to other parts of the motorway network as a major part of our £6bn investment package for capacity improvements to 2014 and beyond. The package will deliver around 520 lane miles of new capacity.

A future challenge is to explore integration of the strategic and local road networks. At many sites where there is congestion, we’ve put traffic signals on slip roads to help keep traffic flowing at busy times on the main carriageway.

And we suspect we could get a much better result if this technology was tied into the management of local roads. So we’re working in partnership with Surrey County Council to look at how this might be achieved around the south west section of the M25.

Reliability Delivery Plan

All these schemes are designed to make better use of the existing road space rather than relying on road widening or the building of new roads. But new infrastructure takes time to complete. And so we’ve invested £1 billion over 3 years in a wide range of more immediate improvements -

This includes: managing incidents more effectively via the Highways Agency Traffic Officer service; as well as using technology to manage traffic flow and improved management of road works. And there will be better information services for drivers to help them choose when and how to travel.

We’ve gone to great lengths to capture the experience of the motorist. And I’m proud to say that we’re the first country in the world to put in place the monitoring of delays on a strategic road network and regularly publish the findings as a measure of reliability performance.

The economic downturn has brought traffic levels on strategic roads back down to around 2005 levels and not surprisingly, traffic levels have a very significant impact on reliability. But we estimate delays on the slowest 10% of journeys are currently around 2.5 million hours lower than they were in 2005. This fact suggests we are having success.  

Concluding remarks

And celebrating success within the highways sector is of course, what today’s event is all about. And so I take this opportunity to wish all of the award nominees every success – both now and for the future.

As a Transport Minister, I unashamedly take every chance I get to praise the work of the people and the businesses who literally keep this country on the move.

Our lives and our communities are the better thanks to the commitment and dedication of everyone here tonight – and of course, none more so than the award nominees.

And back in 2001 I patiently waited in a similar environment for Maureen Lipman to announce the winner of the “Council of the Year” award.

In any walk of life, making the shortlist for an award is an achievement in itself - and that’s why all of the nominees here should feel rightly proud of themselves. My congratulations to each and every single one of you.

By the way - we won that night and if you are a winner it is a tribute to your leadership and the hard work of everyone in your organisation.

And with that thought, I think it’s time I handed back to Nicholas Owen so that we can get on with the business of the night – handing out those awards.

Thank you.

(This speech represented existing departmental policy but the words may not have been the same as those used by the Minister.)