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Heavy traffic
New roads have failed to reduce traffic levels. Photo: © CPRE

Road pricing
There’s a massive media campaign running against the Government’s plans to introduce road pricing several years in the future, with more than a million people signing a petition on the Number Ten Downing Street website which opposes the scheme.

CPRE is, in principle, in favour of road pricing. We believe such a scheme is needed to avoid the growing damage to our countryside and environment (from villages to the entire planet’s climate) caused by ever-rising road traffic.

We favour a road pricing scheme aimed primarily at reducing the overall, nationwide growth in traffic rather than one that is just about reducing congestion in hot spots. Another prime goal should be to cut climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions from road transport; that means higher road prices for gas guzzling cars.

Any road pricing scheme should not divert traffic off urban and inter-urban roads into the countryside. And it has to strike a balance between being fair to people living in remote rural areas, who depend heavily on cars, and discouraging people from being long distance car commuters based in the countryside.

Read our position statement on road user charging (see the link on the right).

Meanwhile, the Government is endorsing a major road-building programme. New roads and widening schemes damage landscapes and bring development pressures. We believe they are not even effective in reducing the traffic and congestion they are built to cure. The Government needs to fund measures which will help reduce traffic by reducing people's need to travel and by ensuring the provision of regular and reliable public transport for every community.

“Britain isn't big enough for us to be pouring more and more concrete over its green and pleasant land.”
Alistair Darling MP, Secretary of State for Transport, June 2002

“We cannot simply build our way out of the problems we face. It would be environmentally irresponsible – and would not work.”
Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister, July 2004