A new direction

THE need for a major review into motoring taxes – and how this money is reinvested – is made even more urgent by today’s report which reveals that £95m needs to be spent on urgent repairs to pothole-riddled roads in Yorkshire that have been slammed as the worst in the country.

There would not be such a funding shortfall if the licence fee paid by motorists – and the exorbitant levels  of duty now paid at the pumps – was actually  spent on the country’s transport infrastructure rather than being used to prop up Whitehall’s creaking public finances and the pet projects of ministers.

Yet, with a new report revealing that it will cost £10.5bn simply to repair Britain’s crumbling network, a change of direction is now required to break the current impasse in which the Government insists the responsibility rests with local councils while the town halls blame Whitehall spending decisions for their lack of action.