Get the builders on the roads

Spot the connection.

The building industry is on its knees and countless thousands of willing and able construction workers evidently have no jobs to go to. At the same time our archaic road 'system'’ is in desperate need of improvement and expansion.

So why oh why isn't Britain keeping builders meaningfully employed by giving them more roads to resurface, make safer, widen, improve or build from scratch? After all, they've got the necessary skills, equipment, materials and free time. And the nation genuinely needs a better, safer, more efficient road system.

Objectors to my proposal that redundant construction workers should, in the national interest, fix our broken road network will undoubtedly ask where the money would come from to fund such a giant, expensive project.

Easy! We, the drivers of Britain have paid the state the best part of £500,000m in road user taxes and other motoring-related charges for the last 11 years as well as cougnhing up hundreds of billions to previous administrations. In other words, we’ve already paid for it all - and then some.

Apart from the money objections, the other argument goes that there's no point in building better and bigger roads because as soon as they're provided, they fill-up. But that's a horribly flawed excuse. Nobody in their right mind would object to the building of more hospitals or classrooms on the grounds that as soon as they're built they're fully occupied by the good citizens of Britain. Similarly, no person who's fair and reasonable could oppose extra highways just because Britain's 50 million drivers want to use them.

Why my call now for a much-improved road system? Well, because the under-exploited and hungry workforce is available; great contracts can currently be squeezed out of big building contractors who are begging for work; and the truth is that our present road network just cannot cope.

Here's one example that proves beyond doubt that our current road 'system' doesn't work. Last week I had to do a simple, 40 mile drive between a major and a minor city. I used a combination of roads, there were no serious dramas en route and the start of the journey took place outside the rush hour.

So how long do you reckon my 40-mile journey in the rain took me? The best part of four hours! My average speed was just 11mph. Thanks to the desperate and frustrating stop-start driving conditions, the Ford Foucs Econetic I was driving wasn't returning the 60-plus MPG it really is capable of achieving but was instead doing 25 mpg because - guess what - cars sitting in queues going nowhere fast due to hopeless inadequate roads waste fuel and, in turn, needlessly pump out more C02.

New roads mean more jobs, less oil consumption, lower pollution levels, reduced stress for drivers, relief for residents and greater economic sense for Britain whose students, workers, managers and leaders are finding it increasingly difficult travelling to and arriving at their places of study or employment on time.

Don't believe the lie that Britain is already 'concreted-over' and more roads mean that we automatically lose our status as a green and pleasant land. The fact is that motorways sit on much less than one per cent of British soil. Which means that well over 99 per cent of Britain’s land DOES not have a motorway sitting on it.

Mike Rutherford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and pro-car activist. Currently writing weekly columns for The Daily Telegraph and Auto Express, and monthly columns for The Independent and Motoring & Leisure, he presented Pulling Power on ITV and is a member of the World Car of the Year jury.

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