UK Invites Private Funding for 'Green' Transport
Date: 31-Oct-07
Country: UK
Author: Pete Harrison
The transport department reiterated its support for airport expansion in southeast England, and said it would look at ways to speed up motorways and rail links between England's three biggest cities, London, Birmingham and Manchester.
It said that while most of its funds had been earmarked to 2014, it had 20 billion pounds (US$41.3 billion) still to allocate in the five years to 2019.
"We believe that there is further potential, as yet untapped, for involving the private sector in improving Britain's public transport systems and networks," said the report "Towards a Sustainable Transport System".
The paper raised the possibility of widening motorways, congestion charging schemes in towns and cities, and expanding Britain's high speed rail.
"In recent years, pension funds and other institutional investors have extended their capacity to invest directly in infrastructure assets," said the report. "We intend to evaluate and pursue these opportunities enthusiastically."
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said expansion could be achieved without increasing climate damaging CO2 emissions.
"This framework document ... dispels the myth that as an economy we face the false choice of being 'poor and green' or 'rich and dirty'," she said.
But environmentalists criticised the plans to expand airport capacity, while relying on the European emissions trading scheme to deal with growth in aviation's CO2 emissions.
"Without blocking plans for new runways we'll continue to tinker ineffectively with Britain's fastest growing source of emissions," said Greenpeace director John Sauven.
"Any carbon savings from personal travel plans and tweaking road policy will be wiped out many times over by flights from British airports," he added.
